event

The objective of the session is to explore how social accountability mechanisms contribute to making governments and civil society work together for open government. The aim is to share the experiences (results achieved and challenges encountered) from projects of Grantees and Partners of the Global Partnership for Social Accountability, which have already made progress in co-producing social change in key sectors. Participants in the session should come away with an understanding of how social accountability approaches can contribute towards the co-production of open government results and strengthen open government ecosystems.

In 25 countries worldwide, projects supported by the Global Partnership for Social Accountability are bringing citizens and governments together in local and national alliances to improve the efficiency and quality of public services and government performance. The projects have achieved notable results over the past years of operation, both in terms of service outcomes and in the levels of collaboration established between the government and civil society groups. These engagements are giving citizens a chance at practical and effective participation in decision-making around issues that affect their daily lives. This workshop will give participants an idea of how social accountability mechanisms are making governments and citizens work together to implement open government plans. The outline of the session is as follows:

1. Opening: The session will be opened by a representative of the GPSA who will introduce a number of project cases.

2. Cases: Project leaders of GPSA-supported CSOs, together with their counterpart Government officials, and the GPSA/World Bank support teams will briefly present their experiences with social accountability projects that are leading to actual social change and government openness in Indonesia and Malawi. Each of the multi-stakeholder teams will provide examples of how grant-making and capacity support for state-civil society engagement at country level helped them navigate challenges in co-producing open government results.

3. Break-out discussions: Participants will discuss the following challenge in small break-out conversations facilitated by GPSA team members and partners: How, if at all, can the insights from the experiences in Malawi and Indonesia help others to imagine innovative ways to support the delivery of open government results and strengthen open government ecosystems at country level? The GPSA, along with partners in civil society, governments, and international development partners are trying to answer this question in a pilot supporting open government reforms in several Latin American countries. In seeking to answer the question, participants will be able to contribute their examples, questions and challenges. The facilitator will encourage groups to identify the types of recommendations useful to them.

4. Conclusion: Each breakout group will recap their takeaways from the small group conversations to the larger group. The lead facilitator will ask the group to “connect the dots” across specific conversations, and to draw out lessons learned and recommendations. What are the emerging patterns from the session? What are the implications for open government stakeholders and open governance? A GPSA representative will close the session.

Speakers:

The activity will be introduced by Jeff Thindwa, GPSA Program Manager. Speakers are being confirmed from Wahana Visi (Indonesia), the Ministry of Health (Indonesia), Malawi Economic Justice Network (Malawi), the Ministry of Education (Malawi), and corresponding World Bank Task Team Leaders, as well as from USAID (TBC) to share these organizations’ experiences. The session will be facilitated by Florencia Guerzovich (Senior Advisor in Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning, GPSA). Maria Poli (GPSA Capacity Building Coordinator) will recap the discussion.