Demanding Good Governance : Lessons from Social Accountability Initiatives in Africa
This is a challenging time for Africa. The combined effects of the global economic crisis, the need for equitable allocation of natural resource assets, and the ever-changing balance of influence and power between the developed and developing world...
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| Language: | English |
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World Bank
2012
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| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000334955_20100706051828 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2478 |
| Summary: | This is a challenging time for Africa.
The combined effects of the global economic crisis, the need
for equitable allocation of natural resource assets, and the
ever-changing balance of influence and power between the
developed and developing worlds are requiring African
countries to re-evaluate their governance structures.
"Social accountability," as defined in this book,
is an approach to enhancing government accountability and
transparency. It refers to the wide range of citizen actions
to hold the state to account, as well as actions on the part
of government, media, and other actors that promote or
facilitate these efforts. Social accountability strategies
and tools help empower ordinary citizens to exercise their
inherent rights and to hold governments accountable for the
use of public funds and how they exercise authority. Global
experience has shown that such initiatives can be catalytic
and that they increasingly play a critical role in securing
and sustaining governance reforms that strengthen
transparency and accountability. The case studies presented
in this book represent a cross-section of African countries,
drawing on initiatives launched and implemented both by
civil society groups and by local and national governments
in countries with different political contexts and cultures.
Over the past decade, a wide range of social accountability
practices- such as participatory budgeting, independent
budget analysis, participatory monitoring of public
expenditures and citizen evaluation of public services-have
been developed and tested in countries such as Brazil,
India, the Philippines, and South Africa. In less developed
Sub-Saharan African countries, civil society and government
actors are also actively creating and experimenting with
social accountability approaches (and tools), but these
experiences, their outcomes, and lessons have received less
attention and been less documented, studied, and shared.
This volume aims to help fill this gap by describing and
analyzing a selection of social accountability initiatives
from seven Sub-Saharan countries: Benin, Ghana, Malawi,
Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. |
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