Social Accountability in the Public Sector: A Conceptual Discussion

bl ic Di sc lo su re A ut ho riz ed Pu bl ic Di sc lo su re A ut ho riz ed Pu bl ic Di sc lo su re A ut ho riz ed Pu bl ic Di sc lo su re A ut ho riz ed In recent years, civic engagement is being increasingly viewed as a promising approach to improve the performance in the public sector. This paper attempts to clarify one aspect of the growing literature on civic engagement: society’s role in improving government accountability – a process increasingly being termed as “social accountability”. The paper develops a definition of accountability as a pro-active process by which public officials inform about and justify their plans of action, their behavior and results and are sanctioned accordingly. The Social Accountability approach towards building accountability relies on civic engagement, in which ordinary citizens and / or civil society organizations participate directly or indirectly to exact accountability. Initiatives such as participatory budgeting, administrative reforms acts, social audits, and citizen report cards, community score cards, all involve citizens in the oversight of government and can therefore be considered social accountability initiatives. While designing an intervention around social accountability, it is useful to think about six parameters: a. Incentive Structure- punishment or reward based approach, b. Accountability for what – rule following or performance orientation, c. Level of institutionalization – ranging from independent external initiatives, to one where the governments have institutionalized participation of outside groups, d. Depth of involvement – is the engagement with government consultative in nature or does it involve closer interaction from the planning stages e. Inclusiveness of participation – ranging from including only the “well behaved ” groups to having extensive consultations with a variety of actors, including marginalized groups f. Branches of government – whether target of effort is executive, legislature or judiciary. The World Bank can apply social accountability approaches in many areas of its work. The pape