Social Accountability and Social Audits

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Social Accountability and Social Audits

• Shekhar Singh

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Objectives of Social Accountability

• Empowering people
• Minimising leakages and waste of public resources
• Making programmes more appropriate and efficient
• Promoting public ownership
• Promoting public participation

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Methods

• Involving affected people in planning, monitoring
  and evaluation
• Timely dissemination of information in an
  understandable form
• Extensive public consultation and consensus
• Timely public response by authorities to issues
  raised

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Preconditions to Effective Public Accountability

• Effective transparency (role of RTI act)
• Community mobilisation
• Capacity development
• Secure (preferable mandated) platform
• Appropriate frequency and periodicity
• Timely, transparent and effective follow-up by
  the authorities
• Effective feedback to the community

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Major Vulnerabilities

• Collusion among functionaries
• Ghost accountability and audit exercises
• Inadequate or inappropriate transparency
• Inadequate time
• Lack of preparation
• Publics unwillingness to participate due to
  fear, cynicism or conspiracy
• Disruption by vested interests
• Inappropriate govt. role indifferent or over
  controlling

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Major Stakeholders

• The affected community
• The implementing agency
• The supervisory agency
• NGOs/peoples groups and movements
• The adversely affected vested interests
• The donor agency

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Roles and Functions

• Affected community (ordinarily supportive, can be
  afraid, cynical or complicit)
• Need to demand social accountability, participate
  in the process and insist on follow up
• The implementing agency (usually in the firing
  line, ordinarily wary of SA)
• Need to facilitate SA process, disseminate
  information and participate in the process

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Roles and Functions contd.

• The supervisory agency (welcomes the vigilance
  but has to deal with complaints and unrest among
  staff)
• Needs to create a safe and secure platform with a
  requirement for SA also help build capacity
• NGOs, peoples groups and movements (Facilitators
  and watchdogs, but can become centres of power)
• Need to motivate and mobilise the community and
  pressurise the authorities

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Roles and Functions contd.

• Adversely affected vested interests (these
  include local bureaucrats and politicians,
  contractors, land lords etc. who stand to lose
  profits and face rising labour costs)
• They will often try and disrupt SA processes and
  even resort to violence. They have to be
  controlled by the government and by public
  pressure. Social strategies have to be developed
  to neutralise their disruptive potential.

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Roles and Functions contd.

• Donor agencies (Would often welcome the
  accountability but shy away from the
  sensitivities)
• Need to incorporate mandatory requirement for SA
  in all their grants and loans and in their
  technical cooperation inputs. Need also to
  themselves be socially accountable in letter and
  spirit.

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Major Questions

• Should donor agencies promote social
  accountability ?
• Government sensitivities, transaction costs,
  need for self transparency vs public monitoring
  of conditionalities (Water project case), demand
  driven projects, local appropriateness and
  ownership, efficient use of resources

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Major Questions contd

• If so, how?
• Making them mandatory in every new project,
  retrofitting in ongoing projects, making them a
  conditionality in SWAps
• In what form?
• Techno-managerial ---- political balance?
  what role does the donor agency play? what are
  the risks and vulnerabilities?