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ANSA-Africa Full Circle Newsletter: March 2008
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Contents:
12 Social accountability interventions launched in Ethiopia
By Geci Karuri-Sebina
 The Ethiopia Social Accountability Programme (ESAP) is launching 12 social accountability pilot projects around the country in nearly 100 woredas (districts) at a total budget of about $5.2 million, making it possibly the continent’s largest-scale intervention so far. The pilot projects are being conducted by local civil society organisations with the support of local and regional governments, and with funding by a coalition of development partners and the Ethiopian government under the auspices of the country’s Protecting Basic Services (PBS) programme. To get the launch of all the projects off on the right foot, an induction workshop for piloting social accountability in Ethiopia was held in Addis Ababa on February 18-21, hosted by GTZ International Services and its local partner, the Community Development Corporation, which together form the management team for the initiative.
ANSA-Africa supported this event by sending Technical Advisory Group members Zerubabel Ojoo from Uganda and Marguerite Monnet from Senegal, who gave presentations and advice on social accountability tools. ANSA-Africa management team member Geci Karuri-Sebina came from South Africa to represent the ANSA-Africa Secretariat. Information from the workshop, and local contact information, can be found on the ANSA-Africa website.
Ms Geci Karuri-Sebina is a Chief Research Manager in the area of Infrastructure & Service Delivery at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in Pretoria, South Africa.
Do you battle to explain what social accountability is or how it can help countries like Ethiopia?
 ANSA-Africa is launching a new teaching series called the Building Blocks of Social Accountability, to support organisations and individuals across Africa who want to know more about what social accountability is and how it can help improve government service delivery and community development. To take part, just check your e-mail inbox at the end of every month for an edited article written by experts in social accountability working with the World Bank or other cutting-edge organisations. Each article will be archived on the ANSA-Africa website for easy download. If you would like to contribute to this series, please send your article or outline to .
ASAP study examines seven different countries
 Social accountability relies heavily on civic engagement where ordinary citizens and/or organisations participate in improving service delivery. To better understand the players, agents, gaps and limitations, ANSA-Africa commissioned its first study on Africa’s Social Accountability Profile (ASAP). The ASAP study provides qualitative, desk-based information on pilot data on social accountability initiatives in African countries. Undertaken by ANSA-Africa’s networks, the in-country reports cover four important regions on the African sub-continent: Mozambique and Malawi (Southern Africa); Tanzania and Kenya (East Africa); Togo and Senegal (West Africa) and Egypt (North Africa) reflect a mix of regions, languages, economic and social development.
The study provides insight into the social accountability practitioners and the role players in the countries under review. It lists what social accountability initiatives exist, details of some interventions and contact details for role players. Challenges to effective social accountability are identified and the role of ANSA-Africa in facilitating a corrective to such gaps, are also examined.
Some common areas are evident where ANSA-Africa is likely to play a role:
- Training involving social accountability stakeholders
- Building and strengthening of capacity of stakeholders
- Developing skills in monitoring and evaluation
- Improving advocacy
- Developing country specific strategies to sustain social accountability initiatives
- Mainstreaming gender into service delivery projects and programmes
Insights in the seven country desk-top review will form an integral part of ANSA-Africa’s future work on the continent.
Training is an essential element at this phase of social accountability in Africa. ANSA-Africa is seeking ways to meet your training needs, as well as to expand and strengthen the continent’s pool of training talent. To this end, we invite you to answer these two essential questions:
- What are your organisation’s training needs?
- What training can you or your organisation offer in terms of strengthening service delivery and demand-side governance?
Your training skills do not have to be part of any official programme or course. We would simply like to know what you can offer to help your colleagues in social accountability, or what you think would help you in your initiatives. Please respond to .
In the month just past …
- ANSA-Africa and the World Bank signed the agreement to carry ANSA-AFRICA forward into its second year of operation. This year ANSA-Africa is concentrating on developing a stronger profile for social accountability organisations, for instance by hosting the stakeholder conference in May; allocating grants to social accountability projects on the continent; seeking case studies and other examples of social accountability in action that can be published and linked on the ANSA-Africa website; developing the results of the initial study on Africa’s Social Accountability Profile (ASAP) and the ANSA-Africa sourcebook; and evaluating the effectiveness of ANSA’s efforts through a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework.
- ANSA-Africa has initiated its M&E process to measure our effectiveness in meeting our goals. The purpose of the M&E framework is to enable the management team to effectively monitor and manage the implementation of the various activities of ANSA over its lifespan and to provide guidance for evaluations of the programme. The framework should enable the project secretariat to: effectively monitor all project activities at regular intervals; provide the required management information to assess project implementation; provide the required management information to report to the Executive Committee and project sponsor; and to identify best practice procedures and indicators to assess the impact of the programme. An M&E session will be presented at the Stakeholder Conference in May to help other stakeholders to apply this valuable evaluation process to their projects.
- ANSA-Africa attended the Advanced Public Service Delivery Convention in Maseru, Lesotho, on February 19-20. More than 140 government officials from national ministries and local authorities attended the workshop. The focus was on developing the capacity and leadership skills of government officials. Craig Schwabe presented a paper on the use of citizen report cards to look at the delivery of services in local municipalities. Some interest was shown in the work of ANSA-Africa and the opportunity to participate in similar workshops was discussed with TACT Business Development and Management, which will organise similar events in southern Africa.
- ANSA-Africa was also part of the Participation & Accountability regional conference organised by the Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa (MDP-ESA) on March 10-14. A report on this conference will be part of the next Full Circle newsletter.
- The website has added these useful links:
In the month ahead …
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 ANSA-Africa invites all stakeholders to nominate representatives to attend the ANSA-Africa stakeholder conference Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on May 19-20, 2008. In addition, ANSA-Africa calls for papers or case studies on one or more of the focus areas to be featured at the conference: The status of social accountability in Africa today; and Establishing social accountability in fragile and post-conflict states. For more information, please email: or visit www.ansa-africa.net.
The ANSA-Africa network thrives on the contributions of its members from across Africa. Please feel free to mail us at any time with your input, requests or questions: .
We look forward to hearing from you.
Yours for the growth of social accountability,
The ANSA-Africa Team
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