Transparency, Disclosers and Governance

Abstract

Authors gratefully acknowledge support of Sandeep Khanwalkar, Vishal Nayak, Gyanendra Tiwari, Vinay Jha, Anamika Ajay, Ghufranul Hassan and Manoj Tiwari in operationalising the social audits in Campaign mode and also for comments on an earlier draft. Usual disclaimers apply. Of late, ability of civil society to carry out social accountability initiatives has been strengthened dramatically, with sizeable community participation and involvement. Paul (2005) argues that growing concerns about issues of governance and accountability can be explained by growing dissatisfaction in accessing the rights and entitlement of poor citizens, apart from other causes1. Social accountability2 refers to the broad range of actions and mechanisms that citizens can use to hold the state to account, as well as the actions on the part Journal of Land and Rural Studies 3(1) 102–120  2015 Centre for Rural Studies, LBSNAA SAGE Publications sagepub.in/home.nav DOI: 10.1177/2321024914534047 http://lrs.sagepub.com