Social
accountability refers to the concept of public involvement towards building a
mechanism where common citizens of a state can participate in demanding
accountability from public officials responsible for ensuring efficient
delivery of services. Aimed at triggering the collective action for change, in
a broader context, the concept of social accountability is all about gathering
information on rights and service delivery.
Some
of the tools and mechanisms employed to ensure social accountability are
comprised of citizen report cards, participatory budgeting, community score
cards, citizen charts, public expenditure tracking, social audits and people’s
right to information acts. Though the concept of SAc is relatively new the
areas where it has been practised, has marked significant achievements in
improving governance and ensuring quality service delivery.
However,
it has also been realised that the efficacy of the concept towards achieving
the desired goals can only be enhanced if additional measures are taken to link
up the supply and demand side of services, capacity of staff is upgraded, and
an effective monitoring and evaluation system is put in practice.
Moreover,
the entire idea of SAc must revolve around civic engagement, where common
citizens and social organisations can directly participate in demanding
accountability of the respective authorities.
The
idea behind the SAc initiative is to achieve broader goals of reducing poverty,
increasing effectiveness of development works, and empowering the marginalised
sections of society.
The
mechanism of social accountability is usually misunderstood as a mere practice
that is confined to the voting process only as communities exercise their right
to hold their representatives accountable. In reality, however, the idea
stretches far beyond that and besides ordinary citizens, invites participation
of civil society organisations as well.
Together,
they not only provide their input in public policy-making and participatory
budgeting, but also play a vital role in public expenditure tracking, monitoring
of public services delivery and, if needed, in lobbying and conducting advocacy
campaigns.
There
are no two opinions about the fact that active citizenship is one of the
prerequisites of effective democracy. Here, by active citizenships we mean the
form of citizenship where people are not only aware of their rights but also
vigorously opt for an active engagement towards demanding transparency and
holding government institutions accountable.
Thus,
SAc also implies addressing loopholes in democratic practices as most of the
time government institutions miserably fail to deliver services equitably and
effectively. SAc ensures enhancing participation of ordinary citizens through
mobilisation, training, capacity building, lobbing and monitoring the accountability.
While
completely in practice, social accountability can yield positive results to a
state or society. Firstly, it empowers the marginalised and neglected segments
of society by engaging them in constructive dialogue with bureaucratic and
political administration and resultantly improves the quality of services being
provided to them.
Secondly,
it augments the capacities of government offices to institutionalise the tools
of social accountability and form their policies while keeping in view the needs
of marginalised families and to plan and execute their activities accordingly.
Thirdly, it builds up the capacities of civil society organisation by engaging
them into the activities that ultimately promote democratic practices at all
government levels. Finally, it plays a pivotal role in forming people friendly
national policies based upon lessons learned from the SA practices promoting
the participation of the marginalised.
The
realisation for the importance and implementation of social accountability is
in its infancy stage in Pakistan. However, acknowledging the efficacy and need
of the concept in highlighting and promoting the essence of democracy and
improving the quality of service delivery in the country, some development
organisations, with the financial cooperation of the donors, are implementing
social accountability in their area of interest.
Affiliated
Network for Social Accountability South Asia Region (ANSA-SAR) is a World Bank
(WB) initiative, which is aimed at promoting transparency, curtailing
corruption and ensuring good governance in South Asia region. Pakistan,
Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka are the countries where SAc
programmes are currently implementing.
The
organisations selected from Pakistan are Sustainable Development Policy
Institute (SDPI) and Centre for Peace and Development Initiative (CPDI) in
Islamabad and Shehri and Hisaar foundation in Karachi. All four organisations
are aimed at employing the tools of social accountability which, in the long
run, will lead to achieving the essence of democracy and good governance and
will improve the quality of service delivery in Pakistan. The social
accountability tools these organisations are implying respectively are Citizen
Report Cards, CSS tools, Mutual accountability and Right to information.
The
fact of the matter is that the world around us is changing rapidly and to
ensure the sustenance of our society we must realise the fact that democratic
governance and accountability will have to be put into practice.
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