Affiliated Network for Social Accountability (ANSA-Africa)

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Beyond public scrutiny: Stocktaking of social accountability in OECD countries
2007
Joanne Caddy, Tiago Peixoto and Mary McNeil
World Bank Institute (WBI)

Executive summary

Building open government is a challenge for all countries. Hence the importance of collecting and exchanging experiences on how to put the basic principles of good governance into practice. Transparency and accountability; fairness and equity; efficiency and effectiveness; respect for the rule of law; and high standards of ethical behaviour are all principles that need to be given substance if better public governance is to benefit citizens.

This joint OECD-World Bank stocktaking exercise of social accountability (SA) initiatives in OECD member countries contributes to the global exchange of policy relevant knowledge. The stocktaking exercise produced 40 templates detailing social accountability initiatives in 27 OECD countries and the European Commission. Cases were selected on the basis of their focus and level, and potential transferability of their policy lessons.

This report – undertaken in 2006 – is part of the OECD Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development’s (GOV) efforts to identify emerging trends and develop pertinent policy lessons for all countries seeking to build more open, accountable and responsive government. It also contributes to the World Bank’s series of SA stocktaking exercises, which have been undertaken in various regions of the world. It does not claim to provide a comprehensive inventory of OECD member countries’ experience, nor an in-depth description of the myriad activities underway. Rather, it illustrates the wealth of innovative practices currently available, and provides a rich resource for practitioners.

Beyond Scrutiny

The OECD and the World Bank take complementary, but distinct, approaches to “social accountability”. The World Bank defines SA as “an approach towards building accountability that relies on civic engagement, i.e., in which it is ordinary citizens and/or civil society organisations who participate directly or indirectly in exacting accountability.” While the term is not used within OECD/GOV, the concepts encapsulated in SA are reflected in its approach to building “open government”. Where the World Bank’s focus is on the tools used to ensure SA (e.g. independent budgetary analysis, participatory expenditure tracking), OECD/GOV focuses on the functional interaction between governments and the public (i.e. information, consultation, participation) throughout the policy cycle.

Building upon the two organisations’ definitions, this report proposes a novel approach to analysing SA initiatives. This innovative classification system identifies SA initiatives based on their ultimate objective, as follows:

Scrutiny initiatives aim to enhance assessment, analysis, and review of government actions.
Proximity initiatives aim to reduce the “distance” between citizens and government by identifying citizen needs and preferences.
Engagement initiatives aim to incorporate citizens into the decision-making process.

Applying Statistical Analysis

Like the other SA stocktaking exercises before it, this review of OECD member countries collected a host of data through the use of standard templates. This project team went one step further than previous work, however, in probing the dataset with the use of statistical analysis. The set of 40 cases was coded and tabulated to highlight the main characteristics and identify key variables, resulting in a set of contingency tables. These revealed a number of statistical correlations. While they cannot be interpreted as indicating a direct causal link between variables, evidence of strong positive and negative correlations among variables do indicate possible relationships that would merit further exploration. For example, SA initiatives that included government-CSO partnerships were more likely to have been evaluated than those that did not. Engagement initiatives tended to be repeated, while proximity initiatives generally were not.

On the basis of the findings presented here, this analytical approach appears promising. It argues for a sequential explanatory research design that starts with the quantitative analysis of a large set of SA cases, complemented by qualitative case studies to deepen understanding of how each variable influences the outcomes of SA initiatives.

Highlights

The 40 cases vary widely in terms of institutional level, initiator, legal basis, and methodology. What they do have in common is their aim to strengthen government transparency, accessibility and responsiveness. Some of the main findings include:

Initiators matter: Government-led initiatives generally aim to enhance proximity with, and engagement of, citizens while CSO-led initiatives focus more on exercising scrutiny.
Declared drivers vary widely: SA initiatives may be implemented as a means to uphold citizens’ rights, to enhance trust and effectiveness, to react to public pressure, or to innovate boldly through the use of information and communication technology (ICT).
A legal basis does not make outcomes binding: The 40 cases analysed in the report show no link between the existence of a legal basis for SA initiatives and the binding effect of citizens’ involvement. If proven through further research, this could temper the belief that legal frameworks alone are sufficient, or indeed indispensable, for SA initiatives to carry weight.
Evaluating impacts: Most information on the impacts of SA initiatives is general, and cannot be quantified nor verified. Evaluation was only conducted in half of the cases. This results often from a lack of incentives to carry out impact assessments, and to the obstacles of conducting a rigorous study. This gap needs to be addressed to ensure continued support of the implementation of such initiatives. Currently, evaluation is not considered as an essential component of SA initiatives.

Policy Challenges and Lessons

This stocktaking exercise has demonstrated that government and civil society SA practitioners across OECD countries face common challenges. Several preliminary policy lessons are proposed for consideration and debate:

Choose a topic, clarify objectives, and include relevant issues. The choice of topic and objective for SA initiatives – and their clear communication – is crucial.
Set clear rules. Setting clear rules prevents frustration among participants. These rules should specify procedural aspects, and the rights and duties of participants.
Ensure feedback and follow-up. SA initiators must demonstrate how participants’ contributions and input are being used in order to maintain public interest and involvement.
Learn to evaluate, evaluate to learn. Evaluation must become an essential, rather than an optional, component of SA initiatives if their full impacts are to be assessed and current practice improved.

Further research is needed to ensure challenges are met, and that sufficient lessons can be drawn for policy application.

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