The Role of SocialAccountability in Effective Public Service Delivery

Abstract

The paper highlights that in low and middle-income democracies citizens largely depend on the state for provisions of basic services like health, infrastructure, education etc. At the same time, it has been observed that such countries face problems of dismissal performance of service delivery due to absenteeism among service providers like doctors, teacher etc. There are also other factors like public fund leakages, red-tapism that obstructs public service delivery. All this has led to an idea of citizens contributing to better public service delivery by holding policymakers and service providers accountable. This phenomenon is where citizens ensure accountability of service providers. The paper highlights various social accountability tools like citizens charters, RTI, Right to Service Acts, Social Audit, Public Hearing etc. that aim to inform citizens about their rights, the standard of service delivery they should expect and actual performance, along with grievance redressal mechanism. NGOs, civic societies have been experimenting with various social accountability tools to improve public service delivery. The paper reviews how citizens individually and collectively can influence service delivery through access to information and opportunities to use it to hold providers both frontline service providers and programme managers accountable. The paper focuses on social accountability measures that increase transparency in public services. The paper also takes stock of international evidence and analyses how social accountability has changed the governance structure worldwide. The paper concludes by highlighting measures needed to strengthen social accountability to bring about a vibrant and effective public service delivery system. Paper also talks about that there is ample space for future experiments to test how to make social accountability work at the country level. DOI: 10.5958/2347-6869.2020.00004.7