Reflections on Social Accountability in South Asia
Asia Governance Learning Event – CARE International
12 June 2013, Kathmandu
Naimur Rahman
Chief Operating Officer
ANSA-South Asia Region
ANSA – South Asia Region (ANSA-SAR)
•
ANSA - South Asia Region (ANSA-SAR) was launched in 2009 with a three year
seed funding from World Bank Institute. Positioned as
 connector to build bridges between scattered social accountability
practitioners & knowledge sources in South Asia
 incubator of new ideas and approaches – to help co-create innovation;
and develop new process and mechanisms for accountability
•
Supported Social Accountability innovations through small grants in India,
Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan to pilot & experiment diverge
social accountability approaches
•
Helped deepen knowledge on social accountability processes and praxis by
harvesting experiential learning, building capacity of practitioners and
mainstreaming
•
Engaging a broader membership at the regional level through thematic
Communities of Practice (CoPs)
A Timeline of ANSA SAR Engagement
2009-2010
Piloting Social Accountability Initiatives
Focused on supporting Social Accountability innovations through small
grants
2011 – 12
Harvesting Lessons, Mainstreaming & Scaling Up
Emphasized scaling up pilot projects and engaging a broader membership
at the regional level through thematic Communities of Practice (CoPs).
2013
Deepening Country-Level Work
Complementing pilot experiences, the focus is on entry points for
deepening engagement at the country level while continuing to leverage
regional knowledge sharing role.
Social Accountability – Examples from South Asia
•
Raising Community Voices to seek their entitlements
under MGNREGA – Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh
•
Enabling Community Monitoring of Rural Roads (PMGSY)
– Orissa, India
•
People’s Initiative for Accountability and Transparency in
Health and Education – Dewas, Madhya Pradesh
•
Community Score Card in Primary Education and Social
Safety-net Project – Bangladesh
•
Mobile based Citizens’ Feedback on public service delivery
and social sector programmes – Bangladesh
•
Role of Governance against Climate Change Induced
Migration – Bangladesh
•
People and the Land: Empowering Communities for Social
Justice in Rural Karachi – Pakistan
•
Reports from The Other India - Social Accountability
through Media Oversight
Uttar Pradesh: Empowering rural people for seeking their entitlements
under MNREGA to ensure livelihood and food security
Location: 99 villages in 30 gram Panchayats of Mirzapur district
Sector:
Livelihood and Food Security
CSO Partner: Centre for Rural Education and Development Action
Project Objective
•
Sensitize the poor and marginalized community members about their rights under
MGNREGA, and empower them to demand their legal entitlements
•
Build the capacity of rural youth volunteers and women SHGs members to equip them
with needed inputs for helping people to seek their entitlements
•
Constructive interaction between the government and the community
Initial Results
•
Facilitated 7500 poor households belonging to scheduled caste and other vulnerable
groups to overcome social barriers and get their job cards registered
•
Unique inclusive approach involving women (especially widows), and physically and
visually handicapped people
•
Meaningful engagement with Panchayat functionaries to streamline discrepancies
•
Helped create a pool of informed citizen leaders at the village level, who along with
growing personally are also becoming an asset to the community
Orissa : Enabling Community Monitoring of Rural Roads under PMGSY
Location: Rayagada and Gosani blocks of Gajapati district
Sector:
Rural road construction under PMGSY scheme
CSO Partner: Youth for Social Development (YSD)
Project Objective
•
Enable community monitoring of PMGSY roads through dissemination and
demystification of information.
•
Pilot a set of instruments for community monitoring of bidding process; identify reform
and advocacy agenda for transparent and accountable bidding process
Initial Results
•
20 rural roads in 30 villages successfully monitored – both at pre and post bidding stages:
•
Pre-bidding: Comprehensive checklist to appraise adherence to PMGSY guidelines and
transparency in the bidding process.
•
Post-bidding: Citizen monitors keep watch on road construction quality bench-marks
•
Perceptible improvement of rural connectivity with improved quality roads in these
villages
•
A cadre of 32 young and enthusiastic community members trained as citizen monitors;
and also to spread awareness on PMGSY and RTI to the rest of the community. An ethos
of demanding information with is gradually emerging within the community
Madhya Pradesh: Peoples Initiative for Accountability and Transparency in
Health and Education
Location: 30 Gram Panchayats of Dewas and Ujjain district
Sector: Rural health and primary education
CSO Partner: Jan Sahas Social Development Society
Project Objective
•
Increase community participation and stake in implementation and monitoring of SSA
and NRHM
•
Build capacities of various stakeholders and advocate at policy level to promote the use of
social accountability tools in implementation and monitoring of these schemes
Initial Results
•
Enhanced awareness of health and education related entitlements among dalit
community members
•
Positive momentum towards mitigating caste based discrimination:
•
New school buildings; increased teacher strength in primary school; and tacking the
issue of teacher absenteeism. Increase in School enrolment of children from Dalit
families.
•
Health services related discrimination getting addressed with access vaccination and
regular distribution of medicines in the villages
•
Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) now visits the dalit villages regularly and is more
responsive in her interactions with villagers
CSC in Primary Education & Social Safety Net
Sector
District
Upazilla
Unions
Partner NGO
Social Safety
Net
Sathkhira
Tala
05
Agrogoti
Sangstha
Bagerhat
Fakirhat
05
Jagrata Juba
Sangha (JJS)
District
Upazilla
Schools
Partner NGO
Rangpur
Badarganj
02
RDRS Bangladesh
Kurigram
Ulipur
02
Sector
Primary
Education
Bhurungam 01
ary
Gaibandha
Fulchhari
05
Dhaka Ahsania
Mission
CSC in Social Safety Net
Mobile Based System for Citizens’ Feedback
Role of Governance against Climate Change Induced Migration
Diagram of
Objectives
Protection and sustainable growth of
Karachi’s rural hinterland and associated
livelihoods
Rural Karachi land use as a viable Agro-Urban Complex secured
Housing/
Services
provided
informally
by use of
political
capital
Fulfillment
of demand
for housing
/services
Informal
settlement
of land
along
ethnically
defined
lines
Land is no
longer
controlled
and divided
along ethnic
lines
Improved management of
mass migration pressures
on land and resources
Effective regulation of land development
(urban sprawl) - zoning violations and
land use conversion
Sanction and
political support of
key planning
recommendations
Planning
authority
capable of
exercising
control over land
development –
financing and
regulation
Rehabilitation of natural resource
base and provision of agriculture
support services
Investment in
resource (e.g.
water)
management
and renewal
Investment
in
developing
agro support
industries
and facilities
A clear recognition (policies, rules/regulations and procedures) and
development of rural hinterland as an ‘Agro-urban’ land use zone
Effect
Cause
Reports from the Other India - Social Accountability through Media Oversight
Location: Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa and South Rajasthan
Sector: Pro-poor development and welfare programmes
Media Partner: Governance Now
Project Objective
Sustained media tracking of state efforts with development at
the grassroots – modeled around Saranda Governance
Laboratory experiment
Initial Results
•
Governance Now journalists have been stationed at Nalanda
(Bihar), Ganjam (Orrisa), Sirohi (Rajasthan) and West Medinapur
(West Bengal) to monitor the implementation of four or five priority
welfare schemes
•
•
Mirrors and complements CSO led accountability work of that
area
These reports are published regularly in the fortnightly
GovernanceNow magazine under the banner Reports from The
Other India. The entire series of fortnightly reports are available in
a e-book form at http://governancenow.com/ansa-sar-book.pdf
Key Lessons, Issues & Emerging Challenges - I
• Social Accountability processes tend to be complex, nonlinear, and
embedded in broader political and societal context
– Inequality and exclusion need to be central within accountability agenda
– The "tools-based" approach risks obscuring the underlying social and political
processes that really explain why a given tool is, or is not effective
• Social Accountability processes appear to be more likely to bring
about change when they support existing pressures for change
together with a number of enabling factors:
– deepening of democracy, appropriate legal frameworks,
– enhanced ability of citizens for informed engagement with state actors, and
– proliferation of new technologies especially mobile phones
• The use of high-quality and relevant information happens to be a key
ingredient for accountability change; however information alone is not
sufficient – pro accountability collective action is often needed.
Key Lessons, Issues & Emerging Challenges - II
• Need for scaling social accountability endeavors to demonstrate
tangible outcome with regard to governance responsiveness especially
in countries like India; but there are major challenges:
– How to transplant one successful model from one context to another
– How to embed social accountability praxis across the hierarchy of public
institution or government
• Calls for considerable Knowledge & Research investments to create
adaptable paradigms for taking successful social accountability
initiatives to scale
– across large and diverge contextual scenarios; and potentially across the
decision hierarchy of public institutions and the government
• Need for co-creating research framework for rigorous and evidence
based mapping of social accountability results influencing
attributable impact with regard to development effectiveness and
outcome.