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This briefing paper provides an overview of these approaches and key factors to consider when designing a social accountability intervention. It also includes case studies from within and outside the International Rescue Committee to illustrate how the approaches have been used in practice, as well as the key lessons learned from these experiences.
A number of resources have been developed by that provide both a theoretical background to social accountability and more practical guidance on the design of specific methodologies. This paper aims to serve as a bridge between these resources and stimulate greater understanding of social accountability tools and methods.
Key considerations when introducing social accountability tools
Purpose: Social accountability tools and methods remain instruments of broader processes of social mobilization, voice, engagement and negotiation in the public sphere. As such, clarity on the purpose they will serve and the objectives to which they will contribute need to be established from the start. This requires a thorough understanding of the nature of the problem at hand, the underlying causes, the social, political and cultural setting in which the tool or method needs to be applied, the functional relationships between stakeholders, and the most appropriate entry point to achieve change.
Technical Complexity: Social accountability initiatives vary greatly in their complexity and the level of technical expertise required. The choice of tool can be further narrowed based on the capacity and experience among stakeholders, especially citizens themselves. Public displays and reporting of information is usually not technically complex. On the other hand, budget tools — such as independent budget analysis, input and public expenditure tracking, and procurement monitoring — require a fairly sophisticated analysis of budgets and contracts. Stakeholder capacity to implement the tool is not the sole consideration; more complex tools generally require greater financial and management resources, and may pose more challenges to achieving the desired results.
Civic Participation: Some social accountability tools require much greater levels of civic participation than others. For example, disseminating information to service users usually does not require users to take any specific action themselves to make the information available. On the other hand, most tools for consultation and monitoring require active civic engagement, although the burden on citizens may be reduced through the involvement of CSOs and the media. Differential demands on people’s time, education and literacy levels and differential power relations all have an impact on participation, particularly for women and traditionally marginalized groups. The number of individuals that need to participate also varies greatly, even with the same social accountability tool. For example, participatory budgeting can mean engaging a few user committee members with budget decision-making authority, or it can mean tens of thousands of people participating in public budgeting assemblies.
Government Cooperation: Most initiatives are highly dependent on government cooperation because of the need for access to government information. Social accountability tools for participation, for example, usually require governments to share decision-making responsibilities such as participatory budgeting and planning exercises, or to delegate authority such as in community management of services. Beyond cooperation, government capacity to respond to claims made through various social accountability tools and processes must also be considered.
Cost and time considerations: Social accountability tools vary widely in the amount of time and resources required to implement them. Cost and time is affected by whether the tool is applied once, periodically, or continuously. In addition to the time and participation costs for citizens engaging in social accountability initiatives, it is important to consider whether the resources to properly staff and manage them are in place, as a lack of resources may constrain the choice of tool or its breadth of application.
Monitoring and Evaluation: Given the experimental nature of many social accountability interventions, particular attention should be paid to monitoring and evaluation, particularly at design phase. An immediate investment in developing a strong theory of change — and identifying progress markers or performance indicators that can be tracked over the lifetime of the intervention — can facilitate monitoring and evaluation efforts. Key indicators that may be useful to monitor include: changes in the capacities and willingness of public officials to engage in social accountability processes, the degree to which citizens understand service delivery arrangements, improvements in interface and interactions (e.g. shifts in the nature of transactions between citizens and service providers from indifference or hostility towards greater collaboration), improvements in service provider responsiveness and improvements in service delivery. By building in opportunities for learning about the changes elicited by these initiatives, the pathways through which they occur, and the contextual factors contributing to their success or failure, implementers are able to better understand how social accountability interventions operate and make more informed decisions regarding their replication, scale-up and sustainability.
Sustainability: In order to be effective and sustainable in the long run, efforts should be made to build a constituency and capacity for implementation of social accountability initiatives among government officials and civil society. They also need to be institutionalized (embedded) within existing civil society, service provider or ‘hybrid’ institutions and, whenever possible, linked to existing service delivery channels and accountability processes within the service provider system. According to Fox (2000:1), “civil society demands for state accountability matter most when they empower the state’s own checks and balances.” It is also important to consider the relevance of repeated exposure to social accountability tools and processes and how they might interact with one another to achieve impact given the interdependence of the institutions, actors and processes targeted by these interventions. For interventions that are embedded in service provider institutions, long-term planning can also ensure that ongoing investments of staff time to implement, monitor and follow up on activities are identified, incorporated into recurrent budgets and sustained over time.
