Final Version
April 2011
Empowering Citizens to
Hold their Governments
Accountable
An AFR Strategy to Support Demand for Good
Governance
Working Group on DFGG in Africa
11
Empowering Citizens to Hold Their Governments Accountable:
An AFR Strategy to Support Demand for Good Governance
April 28, 2011
Paper Outline
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Introduction
3
Key Elements of the DFGG Strategy: Why, What and How
Why?
a. The Narrative of Political Accountability in Africa
b. Justifying DFGG as an instrument of Development Effectiveness
c. Experience to Date with DFGG – other partners and Bank
What?
a. The Analytical Framework for DFGG
b. Focusing on Key Linkages for Accountability: Voice, Compact, and Client Power
c. Scoping Countries: Typologies of Accountability Challenges
d. What: Thematic Priorities for DFGG in Africa
i. Understanding the Socio-Political Context
ii. Accountability for Service Delivery
iii. Enabling Environment
iv. Natural Resource Management
v. Supporting Media for Good Governance
How?
a. Broader Stakeholder Engagement
b. Committing to Learning By Doing
c. Effective Communication
d. Using ICT Creatively
e. Establishing a Civil Society Fund
Implementation Risks and Challenges
4
4
2
7
17
19
1. Introduction
The new AFR Regional Strategy identifies improved governance and public management as a foundation
for development in Africa. While supporting governments to improve capacity for public sector
management and governance through policy advice and technical assistance, the strategy proposes to
also empower citizens to demand better services and good governance by using social accountability
instruments and the potential of information and communications technologies. The Bank, in
partnership with other actors, proposes to play a key role in supporting processes and institutions which
allow domestic stakeholders the voice to ultimately shape a new compact between state, its agencies,
and the citizen. While this is a difficult and complex socio-political challenge with numerous pitfalls, it is
a significantly enhanced role for the Bank and is justified by the substantial developmental rewards to
African citizens. Our goal is to support the aspiration, expressed eloquently by Mo Ibrahim, to have
Africans “take responsibility” for their development.
The Demand For Good Governance (DFGG) strategy is therefore a key component of the AFR region’s
approach to implementing the AFR strategy and echoes the Bankwide GAC phase 2 strategy which also
highlights DFGG as a component. As such this note answers three central questions regarding DFGG in
Africa: Why the DFGG approach is necessary, What is the framework for the region’s DFGG strategy,
and How the strategy will be deployed.1
The “Why” section of the strategy makes the case for DFGG as a potentially game-changing way for the
Bank to influence good governance in Africa, complementing established approaches that support
government institutions. It confronts the questions that must be addressed, and the motivation that
must be clearly articulated for this approach to be effectively adopted by country teams and to be
understood and accepted by our partners. The “What” defines the analytical framework and identifies
specific thematic areas of comparative advantage where the Bank could strategically seek to strengthen
the demand for good governance. And the “How” defines innovative ways for the Bank to foster
accountability —including contextual diagnostics, methods of engagement, behavioral change, use of
ICT, and social networking—to share knowledge, galvanize collective action, and to strengthen multistakeholder coalitions for reform. Finally, the strategy identifies risks, as well as skills and resources
requirements for implementation.
1
In drafting this outline, we are informed by the rich operational and analytical experience already available in the
World Bank and elsewhere (notably in the context of GAC) and by the potential offered by new information and
communication technologies (ICT). Recent examples of citizen-driven democratic expression provide a strong
motivation for re-thinking the Bank’s role in supporting citizen demands for good governance. Naturally, the
process of preparing the strategy has engaged, and will continue to engage, key partners in the Bank group (all
Africa sector departments, WBI, the PREM and SDV and HD anchors, TWICT, EXT, et. al.).
3
Key Elements of the DFGG Strategy
2. Why?
As a key complement to the Bank’s approach to GAC phase 2, DFGG is seen as an important and
necessary engagement with stakeholders to guide governance reform and improve development
effectiveness. So one response to the question posed, why DFGG, is that the region is enhancing its
approach to GAC in line with the broad strategic direction provided by GAC phase 2. But there are
compelling reasons specific to the recently published Africa Region Strategy (Africa’s Future and the
World Bank’s Support to It, February 18, 2011), which make the rationale for DFGG more convincingly.
The logic of the need for DFGG comes out of an understanding of political evolution and state
performance in Africa. The shift to multi-party politics and electoral democracy across much of subSaharan Africa in the early 1990s offered the promise of better governance. In principle, the democratic
process is supposed to enable non-performing leaders to be replaced with more competent leaders by
citizens expressing their preference at the polling booth, the so-called long route to accountability.
However, despite two decades of electoral competition, political participation and citizen voice is still
weak and many African governments have yet to demonstrate a strong development orientation that
goes beyond rhetorical commitment. Instead, a culture of “Our Turn to Eat” dominates the behavior of
the political elite in many countries and sustains the diversion of public resources for private gain of a
small elite group. While democratic elections are a necessary condition, they are not sufficient if
underlying institutions and processes are weak or corrupted. Formal institutions of accountability exist
but, in reality, have often been captured and controlled, failing to perform the check and balance
function expected of them. Thus, weak governance continues to impose a high cost on African societies,
in terms of delayed development and the attendant implications for unemployment, income poverty
and potential for social conflict.
The Bank has conventionally focused its efforts on these governance weaknesses through policy
dialogue with a country’s technocratic leadership and technical assistance for public sector reform and
capacity building initiatives – what are sometimes termed “supply side” efforts. But the results have
quite often been disappointing because it is precisely in situations of poor governance that such efforts
at institutional reform are politically resisted. Where the political leadership sees transparency and
accountability as inimical to its vested interests, it has delayed or undermined such reforms. In such
situations we face the challenge of aligning state performance with the stated development policy goals,
to getting “politicians to do what they say they will do”.
It is clear that the state of knowledge on addressing such development challenges is weak. Experience
also suggests that institutional “forms” of governance and accountability that are functional in a
particular context may not yield the sought after “functionality” if in a different context they are not
well supported by the country’s cultural traditions and social and political practices. Attempts by
external stakeholders to exert pressure for good governance may be necessary, but the nature of the
social compact between the state and its citizens and the appropriate sustainable and functional
institutional arrangements for accountability are likely best shaped by domestic stakeholders with a
4
better sense of what would work. Thus citizens have to play an active role in shaping the accountability
arrangements and may need to be empowered to do so. Social accountability offers an approach to
address the problems of poor state performance and weak political accountability while drawing on
citizen engagement to shape the solutions.
As noted in the Africa strategy, given the dynamism on the continent, there is an opportunity for the
Bank to play a catalytic role in tackling the governance constraint which in many situations is unlikely to
yield to conventional supply side approaches alone. Global trends reinforce the need for the Bank to
increase its emphasis on demand-side interventions to improve governance: (i) recent examples of
strong citizen voice and political participation as shown by events in North Africa (ii) a groundswell of
citizen demand for enhanced transparency and increased capacity to use data through the application of
social accountability tools; (iii) multiplying examples of good practices in open government globally; (iv)
new technologies that allow for broad-based access and analysis of such information; and (v) the
opening up of World Bank and other donor information to the public.
There is thus a strong and logical case to rebalance and enhance the region’s current approach to
governance (which has been improved and scaled up under the GAC by efforts to better understand the
political economy of reforms) by empowering citizens and leaders with information and knowledge and
by supporting the process of debate on development choices and instruments of accountability. Our
role is to enable domestic stakeholders to shape the institutions and accountability relationships to
demand positive change from government. Informed citizen engagement is a public good and citizen
activism, by pressuring the executive arm of government to achieve development goals, could shape
and support the necessary reforms while fostering the broader democratic transition.
Although there has been a fairly long history of social accountability/DFGG work initiated by various
development partners over the past two decades, there have been few rigorous evaluations but those
that have been undertaken suggest the following: the political economy context is a significant
determinant of the impact of DFGG interventions – in other words these are not technocratic
phenomena. Secondly, there is a need for more systematic evidence gathering on what accountability
interventions work and under what conditions.2 Because there has not been sufficient rigorous
monitoring and evaluation there has not been a systematic development of knowledge on how DFGG
interventions might be tailored to country circumstances to improve accountability. Thus there is a
knowledge agenda which the Bank might be well suited to address, as part of its broad focus on
governance and strengthening capacity. So the AFR DFGG strategy must build a systematic learning
agenda into its approach.
2
See McGee and Gaventa (2010), “Impact and Effectiveness of Transparency and Accountability Initiatives”,
Institute of Development Studies.
5
Box 1: Ongoing World Bank Programs on DFGG in AFR
The Africa Region has undertaken a number of efforts to strengthen social accountability in recent years. A
partial stocktaking exercise found at least 96 examples of on-going or planned DFGG initiatives, with a
number of countries now experimenting with more comprehensive approaches to DFGG.
Almost two thirds (64%) of the initiatives were linked directly with World Bank operations (third party
monitoring, citizen scorecards, budget tracking) and frequently included direct IDA funding from clients. Just
over one third (36%) were aimed at financing independent activities primarily focused on developing the
long-term enabling environment through capacity support to civil society organizations, access to information
laws, judicial reform, media support, and the creation of networks. IDA support was primarily directed to
engaging citizens in monitoring government services and improving transparency and voice around budget
management – primarily at the local government level.
Some early innovators have mainstreamed DFGG principles into operations in a significant proportion of the
portfolio, and thereby initiated a process of scaling up within or across sectors (most notably in several
operations in Ethiopia, in mining governance, health and private sector operations in Madagascar) – offering
the promise of broader impact on development outcomes. This trend is growing as - under the general
umbrella of the GAC Strategy and with competitively awarded funding from the Governance Partnership
Facility - a number of additional AFR country teams (Burkina, Kenya, DRC, Ghana, Zambia) have initiated
instructive efforts to promote DFGG more systematically across the portfolio in the past two years.
Given the importance of civic oversight as resources are decentralized, as extractive industry investment
grows, and to ensure responsive service delivery, DFGG is increasing in prominence in HD operations (Kenya,
Ethiopia), in urban operations (Mozambique, Accra, Ghana scorecards on urban service, Tanzania) and in
operational pilots empowering citizens to monitor extractive industry revenues at the local level (Niger Delta,
Madagascar and Ghana).
The Region is also applying DFGG principles to its own processes. AFR is actively promoting the external ISRPlus initiative, which is linked to the Bank’s new Access to Information policy, to enhance the Bank’s
engagement with civil society and maximize the impact of their feedback on project performance as a way to
improve project implementation. Monitoring is also being strengthened through the “contract watch”
exercise, a coalition building and peer learning effort in partnership with WBI to facilitate multi-stakeholder
contract monitoring including in procurement and extractive industries.
Other DFGG initiatives in Africa include the support to practitioner networks such as the Affiliated Network
for Social Accountability (ANSA), which was founded by the World Bank (WBI) and the Human Sciences
Research Council. A recent publication summarizes a wide range of experiences in Africa both on the demand
side (e.g., citizens and the media seeking accountability from public officials) and the supply side (e.g., role of
the ombudsman in Malawi or Public Sector Reforms in Kenya). The multi-stakeholders networks of
decentralization practitioners in anglophone Africa (ALGAF) and francophone Africa (FAGLAF), both
supported by the World Bank, also include social accountability elements for local governance but have
depended on the renewal of DGF or trust fund financing.
6
3. What could the World Bank do?
A recent review undertaken by the Partnership for Transparency Fund (PTF) suggests that DFGG works
best when it is applied selectively and strategically; when there is at least some public access to
information, a reasonable amount of media freedom, openness to the idea of citizen engagement and
state accountability to citizens, and space for CSOs to operate independently. While some countries in
Africa fit this profile, many do not. What should be done in countries where such pre-conditions do not
exist? One could draw the conclusion that in poor governance environments, where such conditions are
not in effect, the Bank should seek to enlarge the space for citizen engagement, enhance the scope for
the media to access and disseminate information, and seek innovative ways of establishing
accountability. But, while having the merit of being practical and concrete, this approach does not
provide a sense of how such interventions would work and interact with underlying country conditions.
We would need to be explicit about the underlying model of accountability for us to be able to convince
both an internal and an external audience about the approach and the rationale and to be systematic in
learning from country experiences as to what works and why.
The need for an analytical framework to guide the DFGG work is therefore important since it would
allow us to identify key links in the accountability chain and potentially to develop broad typologies of
countries in Africa, defined by the nature of the accountability weakness that is most salient from a
demand side perspective. This strategy paper provides one possible framing of the problem that takes
account of the current thinking on DFGG, acknowledges the politics of the state and its structure, and
builds on existing ideas such as the WDR 2004 triangle.
The WDR accountability triangle provides an intuitive starting point to describe key aspects of the
citizen-state relationship, distinguishing between the roles of citizens as voters3 and public
goods/service recipients, politicians as vote gatherers and policy makers, and public officials as civil
servants and service providers. Citizens can influence politicians and hold them accountable by voting
behavior and other forms of collective action, which presumes voice and political participation.
But underlying the somewhat technocratic description of the WDR accountability triangle are both
informational and capacity constraints as well as an often complex social, political, and historical context
which conditions and shapes the nature of collective action by citizens and the behavior of policy
makers, service providers and regulators. To make the analytical framework useful for our strategic
thinking the WDR triangle needs to be supplemented with an explicit acknowledgment of such
contextual factors within which accountability is exercised or subverted.
3
While the idea of citizens as “voters” and politicians as “vote gatherers”might suggest an implicit democractic
electoral system, the WDR triangle does not preclude the application to political systems where direct election of
representatives may not exist or even autocratic systems with little scope for citizens to influence political
decisions. The interpretations would change considerably depending on the nature of the political system.
7
(a) Analytical Framework for Understanding Accountability
One way to unbundle the complexity inherent in any description of social and economic relations is to
identify distinctive layers of the problem, separating deep structural factors (which may be relatively
fixed and unchangeable) from those that relate to institutional features which may change over time if
gradually, to factors that are closer to the surface in terms of being capable of adjustment through
policy or social influence. The schematic below suggests that the conventional approaches to thinking
about social accountability and the relationship between the state and the citizen is nested within a
structural context that has distinctive aspects which will shape and constrain that relationship.
STRUCTURE
Ethno-religio-linguistic
Divisions, Natural
Resource Wealth,
Geography
SECONDARY STRUCTURE
Politics, Ideology, Literacy,
Communication
CONDUCT
Check and Balance
institutions
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR
PERFORMANCE
Citizen, State, Provider,
Social Intermediary
interaction
Figure 1 (a): Broad Framework for Accountability: Structure, Conduct, Performance
Adapting the Structure-Conduct-Performance approach from industrial economics, the graphic suggests
that ethno-religio-linguistic divisions and natural resource endowments as well as geography establish
some structural fundamentals for the state-citizen relationship. These are relatively unchangeable and
might be considered the primary structural context. However, these structural fundamentals often
influence the politics of the country and may affect national ideologies, levels of literacy, and the scope
and nature of transport and communication (a proxy for the level of physical integration of the country)
which are a secondary structural context. In turn politics and ideology (secular or religious, democratic
8
or autocratic, nationalistic or partisan, patrimonial or rent-seeking) influence the shape and functioning
of check and balance institutions, including the judiciary, any representative political body, and the
media. All these factors then provide the specific context within which the accountability relationship
between the citizen and the state is established.
Making these background factors explicit allows us to then: (a) recognize the importance of the
structural factors (notably the effects of natural resource wealth, poor geography, the particular political
economy etc.) as well as their effect on the conduct of formal check and balance institutions, and (b)
incorporate those elements into a more appropriate understanding of the way social accountability
might correct for the weakness of the state to be responsive in specific country contexts.
Figure 1(a) thus provides the broad framework which needs to be kept in mind even as we then zoom in
on the specific ways in which the state-citizen interaction in assessed in terms of voice, compact and
client power. For the purpose of the DFGG strategy, the WDR triangle itself is adapted to be explicit
about the role of social intermediaries in supporting and amplifying citizen views and engagement with
the state and service providers. The graph on the following page provides a schematic derived from the
2004 WDR accountability triangle which describes key aspects of the accountability relationship
between citizens, policy makers and service providers. While citizen voice with regard to influence over
policy makers, citizen power with regard to influence over service providers, and the compact between
policy makers and service providers is at the heart of the accountability equation, how these
relationships are structured and manifest in a given country depends on a large number of contextual
factors. While we may often use the shorthand of “political economy” to describe these contextual
factors, figure 1(a) explicitly recognizes those factors which condition how accountability is exercised in
a country.
Countries where there is a functioning representative democracy and a credible Parliamentary
opposition, a relatively free and active media, and an independent judiciary which embodies the rule of
law, would likely provide the necessary (but not sufficient) basis for government accountability. Civil
society activism is an essential complement to the formal institutions of governance since it provides
channels by which social and economic concerns can be surfaced or legally contested and civic and
political leaders can be motivated to propose solutions.
But the reality is that even with these essential institutions of democratic governance, accountability
may be weak because of lack of information/poor monitoring or capacity limitations in government. In
some countries, there may be a consensus regarding the social compact between citizens and the state
but even relatively cohesive social groups may lack information on government performance. In such
cases, correcting the informational problem through performance benchmarking and transparency may
catalyze social activism which challenges and encourages the state to perform. In other countries, low
levels of trust (even conflict) among social groups may undermine their capacity for collective action and
the formation of social or political coalitions to demand performance from government. In such
situations, performance benchmarking of service delivery may not achieve the necessary impact
because accountability is undermined by more fundamental constraints to civic action. These situations
suggest that the “depth” and source of the accountability failure may be different in different countries
9
– in some cases the problems may be due to deep rooted social divisions which undermine collective
action and the social compact.4 In others it may be a more technical problem of inadequate
information. Distinguishing the source of the accountability failure is critical to an effective strategy and
the design of appropriate interventions.
(b) Focusing on Key Linkages for Accountability: Voice, Compact, Client Power
The WDR 2004 framework helps unbundle the service delivery chain and positions the actors in the
service delivery exchange - the clients, the policymakers, and the providers - in a triangle of
accountability. This framework, while very helpful in describing the relationship from the point of view
of the supply side actors – the state and the providers – does not clarify the institutional and relational
configurations among the demand side actors – the citizens (clients in the WDR 2004 version) and the
social intermediaries – the demand side facilitators, the ones that in these exchanges represent the
interest of the citizens and help correct for the political market failures.
To better understand the accountability interactions from the demand side and to acknowledge their
role more explicitly, we have, in coordination with the anchor team in SDV which is preparing a
companion DFGG piece, added Social Intermediaries (SIs) to detail the relationships that govern
demand side interactions in the framework. We also identify those actors and institutions (such as an
Ombudsman, under Redress Mechanisms), in figure 1(b) that contribute to the oversight and
enforcement of the compact and interact with the public and the SIs on accountability issues. Figure 1(b)
below is an adaptation of the familiar WDR triangle and is a complement to 1(a) which provides the
broader framing while figure 1(b) zooms in on the specific aspects of the WDR “diamond” (rather than
the triangle).5
Social Intermediaries: In between the discrete events of elections there are periods of continuous
governance that affect various aspects of the life of a citizen. Given that most citizens do not have the
resources (time, the technical knowledge, etc.) to individually assess the ability and the willingness of
the state to cater to provision of health, education, security, justice, public roads and transport, water
and sanitation services, etc. they may rely on social intermediaries to provide continuous oversight and
(re)negotiate some aspects of the social contract and service provision to the SIs. The SIs can range
from very informal to formal registered NGOs, trade unions, etc. If delivery of services in a county or a
sector has the oversight of a strong set of formal and informal Sis, asymmetry of information for the
citizen is reduced and both the state and the providers feel more pressure to cater to the needs of
electorate or (in a more authoritarian setting) population in need of inclusion or appeasement. Effective
SIs help close the accountability loop on behalf of the citizens and are particularly valuable when citizens
are unable to organize collective action.
4
This two level framework formalizes and expands some of the perspective articulated in the extended abstract
titled, “Civil Society, Public Action and Accountability in Africa”- by Devarajan, Khemani and Walton, which notes:
“a more realistic description of political and state functioning, closer to most African societies, both in
authoritarian and democratic auspices, modifies the assessment of the potential and limits for civil society.
Accountability failures are deepened because of the way the state functions.”
5
It should be clear that the small circle of “Accountability for Performance” in 1(a) is a compressed representation
of figure 1(b).
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Figure 1(b): The Framework for DFGG Interactions
The Long and the Short Route of Accountability from the Demand Side
State
Politicians, Policymakers,
Bureaucrats
Compact - the Supply
Side
Voice
Redress
Mechanisms
Citizen Power
providers/regulators
citizens
non-state
Media
Advocacy
state
Compact – the Demand
Side
Collective action
social intermediaries
Informal
Formal
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Social Intermediaries can be more or less effective in their task of representing the interest of the
citizens. This effectiveness is the source of their legitimacy, since in the majority of case these are not
elected offices. In democratic settings SIs are created as the result of bottom up mobilization and
preserve their connection to citizenry via mobilization for collective action. In less democratic settings
(including the case of weak democracies) both SIs and formal oversight institutions can be
representative of elite interest and be created in a top down manner by the authoritarian state to
capture both public resources and the socio political space.
The subject matter for advocacy efforts or a coordinated collective action can range from broad political
and social demands to narrow issues representing the position and the interest of a particular group. For
e.g. Human Rights Watch watches over the governments’ adherence to human rights as defined in
various international treaties. Through media it demands that governments adjust their specific policies
and/or legislation to be in compliance with these international norms.
When SIs oversee the providers their role in this capacity is defined more narrowly since it follows the
compact that has been made between the state and the providers. The role of SIs interacting directly
with the providers is to ascertain that (1) the compact between the state and the provider adequately
reflects the interests of the group they represent and (2) the providers are providing services according
to the rules and plans set out in the compact. For e.g. SIs overseeing budget implementation make sure
that the bodies responsible for budget allocation and sector specific use of resource are fulfilling their
tasks in accordance with the particular budgetary regulations (examples). Others monitor adequate
provision of services by the providers according to the established rules. For example, SIs specializing in
the supervision of healthcare provision make sure that medicines are sent to particular local
dispensaries according to the schedule and are then distributed according to the protocol.
(c) Scoping Countries: Typologies of Accountability challenges
Since this framework is intended to help Bank practitioners better frame the accountability challenge in
each country and in specific sectors, we piloted its relevance and value by asking staff working in 6
countries to apply this approach and prepare short descriptions to assess the “road worthiness” of this
framework and to see if we could begin to develop some broad typologies of the kinds of challenges to
be addressed and the appropriate channels for focus. In other words we tried to assess the “potential
and limits for civil society” as indicated by Devarajan, et. al.
The five countries (Burkina, Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia, Zambia) were selected opportunistically because
of prior work on governance and demand side issues and the availability of staff with interest to
contribute to this “quick but educated” scoping analysis. From a broad structural perspective, the
countries have some similarities – a number of them are resource rich although the level of state
dependence on the natural resource sector varies – but also distinct histories and geographies which
have influenced the political culture and the state-citizen relationship. Cameroon is a relatively resource
dependent country getting a substantial percent of its state revenue from the oil and forestry sectors
which reduces its dependence on tax compliance and has enabled a political culture which is autocratic
and patrimonial with an elite controlling a rentier state. This certainly influences the way the
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accountability challenge is posed in Cameroon. Ethnic and language issues are salient in Cameroon
although they may not constrain the potential for collective action.
Because of the inherent complexity of the analysis and the short time for preparing this strategic note,
this country level scoping work is still in progress but feedback suggests that it holds the potential to
significantly enhance the approach to DFGG work and avoid dead-end interventions which are not
supported by underlying structural/political features of the country.
Cameroon Country Team: A Test Response
When shown a draft of the DFGG strategy outline, key CT members felt that it reinforced the way they were
approaching issues in Cameroon and underlined the importance of resource rents in reducing the space for citizen
engagement with the state. They pointed to the following key entry points for the Bank: analytical work including PE
analysis at sector level, enabling environment, NRM, decentralized accountability, and engagement with the media.
There was a strong sense that the Bank should use its convening power to open the space for inclusive dialogue with
stakeholders, including academia and donors. The scope to integrate DFGG activities into Bank projects was pointed
to and the example of forensic audits that were built into the Financing Agreement for specific projects was cited.
To complement the broad framework, and to derive some strategic insights into the way the challenge
of accountability in Africa might be understood the teams also attempted to derive an assessment of the
accountability challenge using proxy indicators for voice, compact, and client power. This work is again
meant to provide a preliminary sense of the similarities and differences across countries in the region
based on a sample of 5 countries. Each of the 3 dimensions of voice, compact and client power were
assessed on the basis of indices selected from the Mo Ibrahim indicators as well as country specific
knowledge for which short briefs were prepared. The “spider web”graphs for the accountability
diamond are shown in annex 2 and indicate that there are distinctive aspects to the problem in each of
the countries. Cameroon and Burkina both show fairly distinctive spider graphs which reflect their
scores on the particular indicators while the graphs for Ghana and Zambia look somewhat similar.
At the risk of compressing fairly complex institutional phenomena to simplistic rankings, table 1 provides
an assessment of how these 5 countries stack up in terms of the areas of weakness in social
accountability. It also suggests that there are similarities in terms of the voice, compact and client
power issues in Ghana and Zambia which both show moderate ratings for voice but relatively weak
ratings for compact and client power. 3 of the 5 countries (Burkina, Cameroon and Liberia) are
classified as weak on all three dimensions of voice, compact and client power, although each has distinct
areas of strength within the relevant indicators. Even though Cameroon and Liberia appear to have
similar social accountability characteristics by this classification, they are distinctly different in many
relevant respects. For example, Cameroon is seen to have a well qualified state bureaucracy which is
largely ineffective because of the politicization of the civil service whereas Liberia has a very weak state
bureaucracy but political support for transparency and accountability as indicated by the recent passage
of a Freedom of Information Law. For the purpose of the strategy, these classifications should not be
seen as anything more than initial scoping which will allow us to anticipate if most SSA countries are
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likely to be concentrated in the first column and if so, what may be the underlying drivers to such weak
accountability relationships between citizen and state.
Table 1: Typology of Countries based on WDR 2004 Accountability Relationship
Weak
Voice—the linkage
between Citizens and
the State
Burkina Faso, Cameroon,
Liberia
Compact—between the
State and Service
Providers
Burkina Faso, Ghana,
Liberia, Zambia,
Cameroon
Client Power—between
Citizens and Service
Providers
Burkina Faso, Cameroon,
Ghana, Liberia, Zambia
Medium
Strong
Ghana, Zambia
(d ) What: Thematic Priorities for DFGG in AFR
Given this analytical framework, which puts the focus both on understanding the socio-political context
as well as the specific channels through which voice, client power, and compact can be used to
strengthen citizen-state engagement for improved state performance in specific sectors, the Bank would
be well positioned to adopt country specific approaches that have a higher probability of achieving
impact. The work on DFGG can then be seen not purely as advocacy but as an analytically and
empirically well justified approach to correcting for state failure from the demand side.
It will be important to avoid the temptation to move on a very broad front on this strategy and we
would suggest limiting the focus to key areas of strategic value and Bank comparative advantage. This is
necessary both because we are relatively constrained in the staff skills to implement such an approach
broadly but also because if the Bank is to establish its value and influence in this area it must bring a
systematic approach to learning and knowledge management as part of the design, to go deep in a few
well defined areas of complementary interest, and to invest in intervention design and evaluation
process.
While focusing on country-specific weak links in the voice, compact and client power chain, we propose
the region commit to supporting DFGG in the following thematic areas of strategic influence.
(i)
Understanding the Socio-Political Context for DFGG: Consultations and review of the literature
suggests that the state of knowledge on the linkages between the structural and political factors which
influence state behavior and responsiveness to citizen needs is relatively limited but needs to be
enhanced. The Bank would be able to add value to the broad effort by the community of DFGG
practitioners by sponsoring or providing strategic socio-political analysis which provides knowledge on
the critical channels for intervention. A draft paper being prepared by the office of the AFR Chief
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Economist notes that the Bank has an important role in contributing such analytical work to inform the
broad nature of the governance challenge and to enable better coordination among domestic and
external partners on the DFGG agenda. This is an area where the region would do well to coordinate
with the Bank’s anchor departments and communities of practice. Over the past three years, country
teams have deepened their skills in undertaking political economy assessments but to inform DFGG
initiatives such work will have to be adapted to understanding how this influences the scope for citizens
and social intermediaries to interact with the state and service providers/regulators.
(ii)
Accountability for Service Delivery: The Africa strategy underlines the importance of service
delivery and the role of urban and rural local governments for effective and responsive management.
While capacity building efforts focused on the government will be an important aspect of the region’s
effort, it needs to be complemented by support to citizens to strengthen their capacity for engagement
with the state. While primacy should be given in each country to working with civil society groups that
would define the outputs and outcomes to target (thereby giving meaning to the idea of citizen
empowerment), the region should also identify key sector outcomes that the Bank would wish to impact
and work systematically to design and build demand side interventions which would utilize voice,
compact or client power channels to achieve positive impact. The Bank is centrally involved with
operational programs of decentralization and service delivery in the HD and SD sectors and these lend
themselves naturally to integrating DFGG interventions. As noted in the Africa region strategy, a major
thrust of the Bank’s DFGG strategy for AFR will be to support initiatives to systematically collect, analyze
and disseminate performance benchmarks on key public services to empower civil society and
professional groups to engage government departments and hold them accountable for performance
(client power). The Bank is in a unique position to support both the design of interventions and the
statistical evidence collection on government performance benchmarks and accountability
arrangements that would inform citizen bodies in their constructive engagement with government
agencies.
(iii)
Enabling Environment for DFGG: We propose that the Bank play a strong role in creating an
enabling environment for open information access and constructive engagement between citizens and
the state.6 In this regard, the Bank can recommend to governments, and encourage through
development policy lending, key legislation to support government transparency. These include
appropriate formulation of legislation that permits/requires Right to Information of Citizens,
Transparency and Access to Budget and Procurement Data, Media freedom, Citizen Access to Internet,
Formation and operation of CSO and Professional Bodies, Asset Disclosure by Political Leaders and
Senior Government Officials. At a sector level, adapted as relevant for country context, the Bank should
promote the following global initiatives which would enhance transparency, accountability, and citizen
engagement in key sectors where governance challenges are prominent: Extractive Industries
Transparency Initiative (EITI) and Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST).
6
Together with regional bodies such as the African Union, NEPAD, the Economic Commission for Africa, the African
Development Bank, and other sub-regional bodies, as well as the African Peer Review Mechanism, the Bank should
seek to build regional peer pressure for countries to adopt good practices with regard to enactment and
implementation of accountability-enabling legislation.
15
(iv)
Strengthening Natural Resource Management: This is a potentially high impact area in the
Africa strategy and one where the DFGG will be a critical complement to ongoing efforts (following the
value chain approach of EITI++) to strengthen government commitment and capacity for effective and
transparent resource management. NRM offers countries great potential to catalyze their
development, particularly given current trends in commodity prices, but it also holds the risk of
encouraging poor governance and conflict. The Bank will co-sponsor the Natural Resource Charter
which includes an explicit focus on promoting developmental norms and mutual accountability among
all stakeholders. Transparency and citizen scrutiny of resource contracts, revenue collection and
expenditure allocation, and engagement on budget execution and public investment management will
be a major area of focus in the Bank’s dialogue and support to country programs, complementing
technical assistance to executive agencies. A particular focus of DFGG will be on ensuring the
engagement of communities in resource rich areas to ensure that safeguards and benefits are
responsive to their needs.
(v)
Supporting the Role of Media in Good Governance: Given their critical role in reflecting
citizen views, in shaping public opinion, and in disseminating relevant knowledge on development, the
Bank will review and identify key initiatives to strengthen the media’s ability to contribute to
governance improvements across Africa. Beyond the broad enabling legislation to remove legal curbs
on the media, these will include collaborative efforts with government and other partners to ensure the
independence of broadcast and telecoms regulators, to strengthen media markets, and support
communication infrastructure, etc. in order to help the media system to perform its potential roles as
watchdog, agenda-setter, and public forum.
16
4. How would the Bank implement the strategy?
The first real challenge to implementation of the strategy will be in how, and not just what, we do. In
step with the broader AFR strategy, the DFGG strategy will rely on Partnerships, Knowledge and Finance
as the three key elements of the implementation strategy. Partnerships with both local and national
levels of civil society and professional organizations will be important as will engagement and
partnership with regional and international organizations engaged in the governance agenda. This
openness to partnerships will require a change in mindset and willingness to learn from others.
Knowledge is a key element of the DFGG strategy but the building and dissemination of knowledge will
require a fundamentally new approach to country engagement and communication. Finance will also
play a role with the Bank working with other partners to address the financial and capacity handicaps
facing civil society groups, in part through the establishment of a Civil Society Fund.
Taking the above principles as the foundation, the following are some specific ideas for implementation
of the strategy going forward:
(a) Broader Stakeholder Engagement: A country strategy and work program derived from a broader
engagement with stakeholders, including those with perspectives that may not coincide with our
own, would benefit the Bank’s quest for development impact. As a premier development
institution, the Bank has earned a reputation as a producer of highly technical and often poorly
disseminated reports with an internal culture based around its disbursements of loans. Despite a
policy of staff decentralization to countries, the Bank is still narrowly focused on traditional clients,
i.e. policy makers in central ministries, and could be more engaged with a broad range of
stakeholders. With a few exceptions, the Bank does not take full advantage of the new ICT
technologies to engage national stakeholders in a developmental debate and to invite their
participation in finding the solutions to problems of governance and weak management. These
behaviors and biases will need to be addressed through appropriate change management initiatives.
(b) Learning by Doing: It is clear that DFGG is an area that there is very passionate advocacy and an
instinctive judgment of the value in engaging and empowering citizens but the “how” of improving
social accountability is not very clear although examples exist which could be tested and scaled up.
So this is an area where the Bank will need to be disciplined in structuring our interventions with a
strong component of evaluation and learning to build the stock of knowledge. Further work is
needed to sharpen the definition of the scope and focus of our interventions, even with regard to
the thematic areas identified in the earlier section.
(c) Communications: The region should launch a more ambitious communications and outreach
strategy that gives real meaning to our commitment to reach out to a broad group of stakeholders
and building partnerships over time with other external actors who are already active in this area.
Making major national and international media outlets (such as BBC and CNN) partners in the DFGG
effort would significantly enhance the visibility and impact of civil society initiatives and the Bank’s
involvement and analytical inputs would provide the credibility to enable this deal to be brokered.
Having regional partners such as the African Union profile DFGG issues and engaging both ruling and
opposition political parties would raise the level of development debate in many countries and
begin to influence newspaper editorials and election debates. In many of the countries that are due
17
to hold elections this year, country teams should be encouraged to repackage and disseminate the
knowledge of the Bank on country development issues in ways that would be more effectively
absorbed by the citizenry, social intermediaries, and the political elite.
(d) Using Technology Creatively: At no other time in history has technology provided quite so broad an
opportunity for citizen feedback both on broad government performance as well as the Bank’s own
interventions. African technology communities, entrepreneurs and CSOs have recognized the
opportunity that technology offers to enable mass participation in demanding greater accountability
from governments and service providers. There is a flurry of innovation in Kenya, Tanzania, Senegal
and South Africa in finding creative new applications (“apps”) that take advantage of mobile phone
and SME networks, social media and geo-spatial technologies to promote greater accountability and
transparency.
Box: African Private Sector and Civil Society Initiatives using ICT for Social Accountability
Kenya is a particularly dynamic center for innovation in this space. “Huduma” is an example of a
new application that amplifies the voice of citizens and helps visualize information about
government programs and their results. It provides a user-friendly, geo-mapped dashboard that
integrates information provided by government, service providers and users. It also serves as a real
time channel of information and communication for citizens to demand service improvements, for
example, by sending an SMS about the lack of skilled birth attendants at a clinic. Once this is geomapped to specific locations and themes, local government and MOH officials receive a report, and
when the problem is fixed an automatic message is sent indicating the problem has been fixed and
to ask for confirmation by SMS or video.
iHub is another support structure for innovators, established by the now well known group Ushahidi
which offers an open co-working and community space that has attracted more than 1200
developers, held more than 70 events, seeded formation of more than 12 companies, and received
sponsorship from major corporations (Google, Nokia, Microsoft, Wananchi)
Given the growth of ICT and mobile phone access in Africa and the ongoing innovations to empower
citizens, the Bank is already playing a supporting role.


The Bank’s Disaster Risk Management team has seeded a partnership with Google,Yahoo!,
Microsoft and NASA in support of the “Random Hacks of Kindness”(RHOKS) that mobilizes
communities to application developers to produce innovative solutions to pressing disaster
management challenges. RHOKS is now broadening its scope to work on other sectors and
themes.
InfoDev, a multidonor program, has a partnership with Nokia and the Government of Finland
which supports entrepreneurship incubators and “mobile application labs”(m-labs), one of
which is located in Nairobi and working with iHub.
18
While ICT apps for transparency and accountability are mushrooming, there is as yet no systematic
linkage to national service delivery challenges and evaluations show that many of the initiatives face
problems of scale and sustainability. Many applications are developed by volunteer communities that
get mobilized at times of crisis but lack the organizational and financial strength needed to sustain them
or take them to scale. As part of the DFGG strategy, there is an important “brokering” role for the Bank
to connect the demand side dynamism of the private ICT sector and civil society to the governance and
public management challenge facing countries in the region. The Bank could help interested country
clients to integrate ICT innovations with national programs in the context of its many policy and
operational engagements with national governance and sector service delivery programs. More
specifically, a two pronged strategy could be followed at the country level through:


Aligning technology innovations with specific opportunities to promote DFGG: As an important
component of the service delivery thematic focus, country team discussions with clients can identify
specific needs and opportunities to use ICT to strengthen citizen demand for improved service
delivery. Challenge Funds and other stimulative processes may be used to motivate and focus
application developers, as are currently being used in a number of Bank-supported programs in
Afghanistan, Kenya and Moldova. The newly approved Knowledge Platform on ICT Innovations for
Accountability and Service Delivery may be leveraged to access expertise.
Turning promising innovations into sustainable programs at an appropriate scale: Where
governments are supportive, the Bank may help with programs to integrate ICT to support citizen
engagement on national and sector level service delivery programs, drawing on the Knowledge
Platform to bring in expertise as needed.
(e).
Establish a Global Civil Society Fund: As part of a global initiative, the Bank intends to consult
with other partners, including foundations and donors that have been active on DFGG in order to
establish a dedicated global fund to support civil society organizations to facilitate their efforts to
enhance government transparency and accountability. Such a fund would correct the fragmentation
and lack of sustainability that has characterized much of the international effort to promote social
accountability and DFGG. The region is an active sponsor of this initiative and fully supports the efforts
to convene partners to consider the approach and implementation arrangements that would give
comfort to potential donors. It is expected that CSOs working in AFR countries would benefit from such
a fund which is targeted at IDA-eligible countries.
5. Implementation Risks and Challenges
As the analytical framework makes explicit, underlying the DFGG model are deep structural and political
issues that will become more explicit if we approach it, as we must, with that understanding. To do
otherwise would be to pretend that the demand for good governance is purely the result of
organizational or informational failure (which it sometimes is) whereas situations of poor governance
19
are typically politically contentious and attempts to change the status quo will hold some risks to the
Bank which must be recognized upfront. If, as the strategy recommends, we undertake formal social
and political economy assessments, the findings (which must be made public because of the Bank’s new
disclosure policy) may create tensions with the country authorities as will the prospect of engaging and
supporting social intermediaries who may be on the opposite side of the political divide in the country.
Management will need to consider how best to address this risk with a proactive communication
strategy that Country Directors and staff can disseminate to country authorities. The Bankwide strategy
on DFGG may address some of these questions but the region will need to contribute to that thinking.
The Bank has a formal relationship with the government (the government is the principal and the Bank
in essence its agent) and in principle the government can limit the scope of the Bank’s engagement with
civil society on DFGG issues. Until recently, in the MENA region, the Bank was given very little room to
engage on DFGG issues because of the discouragement by the governments. However, not engaging on
matters where there is a development and distributional consequence also has a reputational risk for
the Bank as is amply shown by the MENA experience. Management will need to consider how such
situations should be handled in line with the Bank’s Articles of Agreement.
Less dramatically, there are risks in any initiative where the funding and responsibilities are not clear.
The review of global and WB experience in supporting citizen engagement to promote good governance
and combat corruption, undertaken by the Independent Partnership for Transparency Fund (2010),
provides a helpful summary of the internal Bank-specific constraints and emerging risks to DFGG7. These
include: (i) DFGG becomes an unfunded mandate, with temporary funding such as the GPF drying up,
and this ensures underachievement (ii) DFGG becomes synonymous with support CSOs/NGOs at the
expense of neglecting other non state actors and the links between the supply and the demand side, (iii)
DFGG tools suffer from a lack of strategic selectivity and weak follow up during implementation, (iv) the
lack of an internal focal point within the Bank dissipates time, energy and funding, and (v) DFGG
becomes a safeguard, mandated for all projects with potentially negative impacts.
The review recommends that any scaling up must be carefully planned. Specifically, it recommends: i) A
more strategic and selective approach to DFGGG with better understanding of which instruments work
in which local contexts and with specific guidance to staff, (ii) finding new funding mechanisms to build
country systems of DFGG, (iii) use the Bank’s knowledge brokerage role to improve the evidence base on
what works where and what doesn’t, drawing in outside experts as needed, (iv) ensure clear mandates
and adequate funding to go with it and explicitly budget for DFGG interventions, (v) measure, evaluate
and report DFGG work done at the Bank, starting with a set of indicators for tracking outputs and
outcomes in Bank financed operations and CASs. While these risks and challenges are not Africa-specific,
they are worth bearing in mind so that appropriate mitigation strategies are identified within the
proposed AFR Strategy for DFGG.
While the issue of funding and mandate is an issue on which regional management will have to provide
information that was not available to the team preparing this strategy, this note has addressed a
7
“Stimulating the Demand for Good Governance: An Agenda for Enhancing the Role of the World Bank”, by Vinay
Bhargava, Kit Cutler and Daniel Ritchie.
20
number of the other risks explicitly. The strategy does propose to keep the focus narrow and to ensure
that there is a strong commitment to building a stock of knowledge in this area which will both justify
the initiative as well as establish an important role for the Bank in creating positive externalities for
other actors in this area of development.
Finally, this strategy is a draft prepared over a relatively short period of time in collaboration with a large
number of internal partners in the Bank. As such if there is any credit to the paper it is to be shared
widely but any shortcomings remain the responsibility of the primary authors.
21
Annex1: Examples of DFGG interventions by level
Level of
Engagement
Illustrative DFGG Interventions
Local –
Community and
Local
Government





Budget transparency;
Participatory monitoring and evaluation;
Citizen satisfaction benchmarking;
Participatory identification of the poor & community needs ranking;
Community procurement
Sector




Grievance redress mechanism design and implementation assistance;
Good governance indices (Open Budget Index; Doing Better Business, etc.);
Competition and service quality awards;
Third party monitoring;









Asset disclosure legislation;
Access to information laws;
Strengthening ombudsmen offices;
Anti-corruption agency legislation & implementation assistance;
Open budget initiatives;
Capacity building of parliamentarians, journalists, CSOs, etc.;
Initiatives to make media systems independent, diverse and commercially
viable (including new and old ICTs).
Civil society assessments
Code of conducts for journalists, businesses, civil servants, etc.



CSO coalitions that promote transparency and accountability;
Direct support for civil society, media, learning networks;
Creation of centers of excellence that promote DFGG
National
Regional/Global
22
Annex 2: Depicting Accountability
The attached “spider web”graphs provide a visual depiction of voice, compact and client power
in 5 countries using indicators derived from the Mo Ibrahim governance indicator set.
Liberia: Selected indicators of accountability
Openness
80
Citizen
Enforcement
Power
Transparency
60
40
Service Delivery
Model
20
Influence
0
Quality of
Service Delivery
Public Sector
Capacity
Accountability
of Public
Officials
Oversight
Normalised score (0-100)
Burkina Faso: Selected indicators of accountability
Citizen
Enforcement
Power
Openness
80
60
Transparency
40
Service
Delivery Model
Quality of
Service
Delivery
Accountability
of Public
Officials
20
Influence
0
Public Sector
Capacity
Oversight
Normalised score (0-100)
23
Ghana:Selected indicators of accountability
Citizen Enforcement
Power
Service Delivery Model
Openness
100
80
60
40
20
0
Transparency
Influence
Quality of Service Delivery
Public Sector Capacity
Accountability of Public
Officials
Oversight
Normalised score (0-100)
Zambia: selected indicators of accountability
Citizen
Enforcement
Power
Service
Delivery
Model
Openness
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Transparency
Influence
Quality of
Service
Delivery
Public Sector
Capacity
Accountabilit
y of Public
Oversight
Officials
Normalised score (0-100)
24
Cameroon: Selected indicators of accountability
Openness
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Citizen
Enforcement
Power
Service Delivery
Model
Transparency
Influence
Quality of
Service Delivery
Public Sector
Capacity
Accountability of
Public Officials
Oversight
Normalised score (0-100)
25
26
27