Voice and accountability

Developing pre-conditions

Pre-conditions for meaningful engagement of the poor and marginalized in policy and decision-making include access to information, creation of a strong and vibrant civil society and legal and institutional arrangements enshrining the right to participate.

Page contents:

• Increasing access to information
• Strengthening civil society
• Understanding institutional arrangements

Increasing access to information

Access to accurate, relevant and clear information and analysis of political, economic and social issues can enhance the quality of state-society dialogue and build the capacity of citizens and their representatives to engage in the policy process.

UNDP, 2003, 'Access to Information', Practice Note, United Nations Development Programme, Oslo Governance Centre, Oslo
How does access to information support good governance and poverty reduction? What needs to be included in the effective design of access to information programmes? This practice note by the United Nations Development Programme argues that access to information is an empowerment tool that underpins democratic governance, and which is also fundamental to other priority programme areas such as HIV/AIDS, the environment, gender, crisis prevention and ICT for development. To reduce poverty, it is essential to maximise poor people’s access to information to enable their participation in democratic and policy making processes.
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An independent media can provide crucial access to information as well as serve as a vehicle for poor people to express their voice.

Hudock, A., 2003, 'Hearing the Voices of the Poor: Encouraging Good Governance and Poverty Reduction Through Media Sector Support', World Learning for International Development, Washington D.C.
Widespread citizen participation is essential for sustained development. The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) process therefore requires active citizen participation in policy discussions. Yet how can citizens participate fully when they are politically unaware and have never heard of PRSPs? This paper from World Learning examines the key role the media plays in development and PRSPs in particular. PRSPs provide an opportunity to support media development for good governance and poverty reduction in the long-term.
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The role of donors providing timely, accessible and relevant information about aid is coming under increasing scrutiny, not only in terms of the need for citizens in donor countries to be able to hold their own governments to account but also the need for citizens in recipient countries to have access to information on aid flows to their national governments.

aidinfo, 2008, ‘Better Information: Better Aid’, Draft Consultation Paper, Development Initiatives, Wells.
What are the potential benefits of aid transparency? What information is needed and how could donors make this more accessible? Survey results indicate that improved transparency of aid information would contribute to faster poverty reduction by making aid more effective and accountable. Users of aid information need more accessible, detailed, timely, and consistent information to enable them to make aid work better. Donors should therefore publish information (electronically) in more detail, using common definitions and a common format. This could both reduce costs for donors, who repeatedly provide the same information in different forms, and increase the information's value to users.
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Further information on supporting open information environments and information and social accountability is available in the GSDRC’s topic guide on communications and governance.

Strengthening civil society

The presence of active, informed and coordinated civil society organisations (CSOs) is generally regarded as another important precondition to amplifying the voices of the poor. CSOs can play an important role in empowering marginalised groups, act as checks and balances and provide an opportunity for people to engage in collective action and social mobilisation.

Tandon, R., 2003, 'Civil Society and Policy Reforms', IDS Civil Society and Governance Policy Brief No. 9, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton
How can civil society’s engagement in the policy-making process benefit the marginalised the most? This paper from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) attempts to answer this question, and others, by presenting the results of an analysis of 15 case studies from the Indian experience. This analysis indicates that there are three ways in which civil society engages in the policy making process in that country: resisting policy reform, including certain constituencies in policy making and implementing existing progressive public policies
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Civil society faces several challenges to affecting significant pro-poor change. Criticisms levelled at CSOs are that they can be unaccountable, donor driven and generally Northern-centric. Civil society is prone to elite capture and can exclude the very people they claim to represent. Other problems include lack of resources and weak coordination capacities.

Court., J, et al., 2006, 'Policy Engagement: How Civil Society Can be More Effective', Rapid Programme, Overseas Development Institute, London
How can civil society organisations (CSOs) strengthen their influence on government policy processes? This report from the Overseas Development Institute argues that a combination of unfavourable political contexts and weaknesses in the strategies, evidence-use and capacities of CSOs has limited the effectiveness of civil society. It recommends that CSOs enhance their networking, research and communication skills and their understanding of political processes to improve their policy engagement. The report provides tools and examples for how to do this.
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Understanding institutional arrangements

Amplifying the voices of the poor will have little impact if there is not a strong commitment within the government to respond. Institutional arrangements that preserve the rights of citizens to participate are important enabling conditions.

Institute of Development Studies, 2006, ‘Making Space for Citizens: Broadening the ‘New Democratic Spaces’ for Citizen Participation’, IDS Policy Briefing No. 27, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton
The limits of democratisation strategies which focus only on the formal electoral arena are becoming increasingly clear. There is a growing emphasis on deepening democracy, and emerging ‘new democratic spaces’ seek to extend the range and scope of opportunities for citizen participation. This policy briefing from the Institute of Development Studies highlights the key challenges involved in making these spaces effective forms of citizen participation. It argues that much more attention needs to be paid to contextual factors and institutional design.
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Fung, A., 2003, ‘Recipes for Public Spheres: Eight Institutional Design Choices and Their Consequences’, The Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol. 11, No. 3, Pp. 338-367
How can we improve the quality of civic engagement and public deliberation? This survey article from the JFK School of Government at Harvard University analyses several dimensions of efforts to improve the public sphere. It focuses on the realm of ‘minipublics’ (deliberately convened publics), bringing practice into contact with considerations of democratic institutional design through a review of five contemporary applications.
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National and local laws and policies mandating citizen participation can be important enabling conditions, although their effectiveness will depend on the historical and cultural context in which they are applied and the actors involved.

McGee, R. et al, 2003, ‘Legal Frameworks for Citizen Participation: Synthesis Report’, Learning Initiative on Citizen Participation and Local Governance
What kind of legal framework best enables citizen participation in local governance? What contextual factors constrain or enable citizen participation? This report from the Learning Initiative on Citizen Participation and Local Governance (LogoLink) synthesises the findings of a research project on frameworks for citizen participation in East Africa, Latin America, South and South-East Asia and the North.  
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In many countries there are gaps between community rights enshrined in legislation and how these can be realised by marginalised groups. In such cases it is necessary to identify legal shortcomings and implement improved procedures.

Johnstone, R., et al, 2005, ‘Good, Average, Bad: Law in Action’, Power tools series, Terra Firma, Maputo, Mozambique and International Institute for Environment and Development, London, UK.
How can gaps between the intended and actual outcomes of legislation be addressed? This paper from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and Terra Firma gives an overview of their GAB (Good, Average, Bad) framework, a tool for scrutinising and improving the practical outcomes of legislation for marginalised communities. It describes the tool and its use in identifying ways to improve required community- concessionaire forestry negotiations in Mozambique.
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