|
| Civic Leadership Governance and Social Accountability « Programmes |
 |
| |
| PROMOTION OF SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY |
|
| |
|
Governance institutions can improve performance when they listen to the voices of the citizens. The empowered citizen can hold the governing institutions accountable. Involvement of citizen leaders for accountable governance has been demonstrated as effective method of social accountability. About 650 Citizen leaders of seven blocks in two districts of Gujarat are trained on conducting citizen report card (CRC), Right to Information (RTI) camps, social audits of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and monitoring of basic services in both urban and rural areas and are able to effectively engage with panchayats and urban local bodies to improve delivery of service. Such demonstrations have help evolve methods and tools on social accountability which have been shared with other civil society organisations for wider application.
For enlarging the zone of influence on social accountability we have been working to develop popular methodology and tools. We are working with the Department of Rural Development, Government of Gujarat to facilitate a State wide social audit of NREGS. Currently Unnati is facilitating the third round of social audit. Officials of all the 26 districts and about 2500 taluka level social audit facilitators are trained on social audit. For the year 2008-09, the Ministry of Rural Developed awarded Unnati the ‘Rojgar Jagrukta Puraskar’ award. For the Government of Himachal Pradesh GTZ has invited Unnati to develop their social audit manual. Some of the popular knowledge products developed from the field experiences are (i) Social audit manual and film, (ii) Film and case compilation on role of citizen leader, (iii) Popular guide on citizen engagement in urban development, (iv) City specific citizen report cards including video documentation on monitoring basic services. |
|
| |
| To promote Social Accountability, the following Strategies are followed : |
|
|
Create a community of social accountability practitioners from among citizen leaders of the affected communities, CBOs and local NGOs who will work on information disclosure, monitoring basic services, tracking of the poor and programmes around them. |
|
Building a people’s voice on local issues affecting their rights and entitlements in both urban and rural areas and enhance consultative process to facilitate implementation of programmes and services in favour of the poor. |
|
The social accountability practices, particularly tools, methods and processes can be derived from the existing practices and appropriately adopted for every day practice. |
|
The field practices can be systematized into learning products for wider practice including academic learning. |
|
Link up with the diverse social accountability network for mutual learning, solidarity and building and expanding collective to make wider impact on policies and programmes nationally and internationally. |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
