Accountability was defined in Study Session 1 as the duty of an organisation or individual to account for their actions and accept responsibility for them. Different aspects of accountability apply to organisations and individuals. Personal accountability is the duty of the individual to take responsibility for his or her actions. Every individual is socially, morally and legally accountable to the community or organisation that they belong to. Defining what this means for each member of a team is often a critical part of a community or organisation leader’s job. Encouraging team members to be personal accountable can have the following results:

  • It can ensure that community members and organisational employees are held accountable to local agreements and bylaws.
  • The leader’s willingness to promote personal accountability in others and in themselves helps to create a positive focus in which great things can be achieved.

Organisations, including all levels of government, should also be accountable. Social accountability means that public officials, politicians and service providers are held accountable to the public and service users for their conduct and performance. A fundamental principle of democracy is that citizens have a right to demand a governance system that ensures accountability of power holders and public actors. In a democratic society, public actors such as elected officials and civil servants are obliged to be accountable for their conduct and performance (ANSA-EAP, 2010). Citizens get a better service when officials respect the public and follow the principles of social accountability. The relationship between democracy and social accountability is therefore important in ensuring that government officials and community representatives respect the wider community.

Social accountability is about involving citizens and communities in the processes of governance so that decisions and actions of the people and organisations with power are made public and can be questioned. This not only improves governance but also leads to better service delivery and to community empowerment.

Social accountability mechanisms for involving the community can be applied in (ANSA-EAP, 2010; World Bank n.d.):

  • planning and development
  • setting budgets
  • tracking expenditure
  • monitoring the performance of projects.

An essential part of social accountability is open and effective communication with communities so that they are informed and can participate in these areas of project development and service delivery. Figure 5.1 shows an example where a community is participating in discussion about plans for new WASH facilities at the local school.

Figure 5.1 Communicating with the community is part of social accountability.

Enabling environment for social accountability

It is important to ensure that the mechanisms used to achieve social accountability will be effective. For this to happen there needs to be a suitable enabling environment in which these approaches will work. An enabling environment means the set of conditions that need to exist for some event, phenomenon or action to take place. According to ANSA-EAP (2010), an enabling environment for social accountability of government organisations has four pillars. These are listed below.

1. Organised and capable community groups

Well-organised community groups should be able to gather information about government programmes and services, and use this to directly engage public officials, politicians and service providers. They can ask questions and demand that they serve the community interest, justly, efficiently and effectively.

2. Responsive government

The government organisation should be willing to respond positively to the community and provide opportunities and processes for constructive community engagement. The government officers should believe in the value of social accountability and community participation in governance, and support these processes.

3. Access to and effective use of adequate and essential information

High quality and reliable information is an important prerequisite for any social accountability programme. Monitoring and evaluation of government’s performance should be based on reliable evidence to make credible claims about whether the government is performing well or not.

4. Sensitivity to culture and context

All the people involved should have a good understanding of contextual factors that could help or hinder the adoption of social accountability mechanisms. Hindering factors may include values and beliefs that sustain a culture of favouritism, corruption and mismanagement in the government.

Social accountability in WASH services

For social accountability in the WASH sector, the first step is to consider who the service providers might be, because these are the people or organisations that need to be socially accountable.

Who do you think are the service providers for an urban WASH project?

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Public officials, professionals, government employees, non-governmental organisations and community-based organisations are all considered to be service providers. All these groups of people should therefore be accountable for their conduct and performance in delivering the services.

Community-based urban WASH projects may encounter serious challenges as a result of poor service delivery. Such challenges may arise if WASH facilities have been installed without the participation of the local community (KIND, 2014). Involving the community at an early stage helps individuals to realise their responsibilities as citizens (personal accountability) and helps to ensure that public officials, politicians and service providers are accountable for their actions (social accountability).

Last modified: Saturday, 1 October 2016, 3:58 PM