stories from the field

Capitalizing on the ability of civil society organizations to collect information from users of public services about the state of public service delivery, and effectively channeling this information to decision-makers in government and parliament can contribute to evidence-based policymaking, and, ultimately, to improved public services.

Collaborative social accountability focuses on solving governance and service delivery challenges by convening, capacitating, and enabling purpose-led collaboration among those stakeholders that can evoke change in a particular policy area.

What does it take to make meaningful and lasting civil society-government collaboration happen?

Social accountability tools can be adopted in the most unlikely places, including those characterized as being hierarchical and where there are no existing accountability processes.

Collaborative social accountability can help build bridges between citizens and the state.

Long-term investments in social infrastructure, like the GPSA’s investments in collaborative social accountability, have enabled communities to better cope through the COVID-19 crisis.

In Bangladesh, a GPSA grant helped combine formal government reforms with local community participation.

Long-term investments in social infrastructure, like the GPSA’s investments in collaborative social accountability, have enabled communities to better cope through the COVID-19 crisis.

Visión Mundial República Dominicana (World Vision) y el Ministerio de Educación (Minerd) firmaron un acuerdo donde ambas instituciones se comprometen a trabajar de manera conjunta y colaborativa para el fortalecimiento de las capacidades en Participación Social de su equipo de técnicos regionales y distritales a nivel nacional.

Municipalities are key actors in charge of public service delivery and local economic development in Madagascar. While they retain mandates and rights for resources mobilization they are left disempowered. Why?

Shortly after the WHO declared Covid19 a global pandemic, community leaders in Bangladesh realized the need to organize to limit its spread and ensure social protection for the most vulnerable.

Billions are now being distributed to citizens by governments to stave off rising poverty from COVID-19. The unprecedented pandemic demands an unprecedented government response.

No one would argue that ensuring social accountability approaches are inclusive is critical.

Over the last decade, Nepalis embarked on a historic transition that aims to alter the fundamental structures of government. Questions remain on how longstanding social accountability mechanisms will evolve and adapt, including in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although a conversation about mid-level theory-building for social accountability sounds boring, it still manages to get a few hundred people to sign up and engage with yet another Zoom call.

This post synthesizes 3  key takeaways from the Webinar “How to make mid-level theory more useful for social accountability that contributes to building back better?”.

In planning its Covid-19 response, Sierra Leone needed to consider the needs of its most vulnerable citizens. Surveys conducted by the MIT Governance Lab and the Institute for Governance Reform tried to capture their voices.

Our initial efforts to focus on practice as a way to address blind spots in research and evaluation have produced a good initial agenda, lots of questions to ponder with a wonderful, diverse group. What are the next steps for our emerging group?

Social accountability’s future has to climb a steep hill. It has to figure out how to transition from ‘going alone’ to ‘being embedded in cross-sector change making. The sectoral agendas already have good entry points for social accountability.

Social accountability is about relationships. Many of the stories about doing social accountability in the “middle” route focused on building, nurturing and sustaining relationships with different stakeholders.

Many in the social accountability practice feel stuck in the middle of debates that do not reflect the way they go about their efforts. In a recent event, a diverse group of colleagues discussed why we do not talk about what we do.

“People who never speak, speak. Through Citizen Voice and Action, they dare to speak up about the things that need to be improved.” This is among comments shared with evaluators of the first Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA) project in Indonesia.