Accountability is broadly defined as an obligation of those holding power to take responsibility for their behaviour and actions with the ultimate objective of improving service delivery to the citizens who have given them their mandate. Establishing social accountability mechanisms has great potential for improving governance and making service delivery more effective in municipal governance through empowering citizens. In India, accountability failures persist because several links in the chain of accountability – from citizens to the government – have either never existed or are severely damaged.

PRIA has been working in a number of settings to improve accountability in delivery of services by governance institutions. Through its work, PRIA ensures that citizens have access to information and platforms through which they can monitor performance and demand accountability for services they receive. In addition, the governments (politicians and bureaucrats) acting as agents of citizens create incentives for performance and through regular monitoring hold implementers and service providers accountable for outcomes.

The intervention to improve basic services (water and sanitation) for the poor in the cities of Raipur, Ranchi and Varanasi was taken up under the project ‘Supporting ULBs in Institutionalizing Social Accountability Mechanisms’.  The most significant intervention was organising local households into neighbourhood or area sabhas (committees). In addition to their orientation, PRIAfacilitated meetings to identify issues and problems faced by the communities related to water supply and sanitation services. As a result of positive discussions,Citizen Charters have been developedin Raipur, Ranchi and Varanasi municipalities and these have been publicly notified. In addition, Raipur municipality has developed a single window grievance redressal system; complaints handling in Ranchi has been systematised through a 24/7 helpline; in Varanasi, grievance handling has been decentralised to ward level to ensure quick response.

Social accountability tools have been designed and implemented by PRIA in several locations. PRIA has vast experience of using social audit in panchayats and rural development programmes. One such intervention was when it facilitated social audits in 17 gram panchayats in eight states by involving the people and influencing decision-makers by disseminating the knowledge gained in the process.

This activity led to improvements in the delivery of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), demanding accountability from the government and elected representatives. Recently it has begun the first social audit for Basic Service for Urban Poor (BSUP) project in Chandigarh.

Formation of new community-based organisations and mobilising citizens to engage effectively with local governance structures in order to improve their conditions is a huge challenge. PRIA has also been working with supply side interventions at state and district levels – in addition to building capacity of elected panchayat and municipal leaders, it has worked towards equipping the official machinery to perform its role efficiently.

Enabling Citizens for Demanding Accountability through Social Audit is one such project where it has built the capacities of panchayat elected representatives to strengthen the delivery mechanisms of development programmes and sensitise, collectivise, mobilise and empower the marginalised and women to stand for their rights and entitlements by participating in social audit through Gram Sabha/Social Audit Forum.

Similarly in Democratizing Urban Governance: Promoting Participation and Social Accountability PRIA undertook the activity of improving citizens’ access to information, basic services and institutions of urban governance decision-making, and also worked on enhancing capacities of municipalities to become transparent, accountable and efficient in basic service delivery in two cities each in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa. In continuation with its support of enhancing capacities of local governance systems, PRIA also supported the orientation of 2000 elected representatives on NREGS of eleven states. In the Programme to Enhance Capacity for Social Accountability (PESCA) under the World Bank, PRIA conducted three schools in Cambodia to highlight leading practices, particularly in the context of local governance and practitioners of social accountability.

One of the persistent obstacles in delivery of services to the poor and marginalised and realisation of their rights is the lack of transparency and accountability in various government schemes and agencies. Right to Information Act provides a tool to citizens to hold government officials responsible, to share information and to account for their actions (or inaction).

PRIA has worked towards dissemination of information about Right to Information to various communities of the poor over the past several years. It has been organising Right to Information (RTI) learning camps in various states as per the demands of local students, women’s groups and other NGOs and the campaign continues wherever citizens demand to know more about the Act. In Haryana, a State Level workshop was held on RTI to achieve this purpose. This shows PRIA’s commitment towards strengthening networks for wider awareness of RTI at the grassroots level.

PRIA also conducts exposure visits of various stakeholderson Government Transparency and Budget Accountability. One such visit was the India Study Visit for Ford Foundation grantee organisations, government officials and media persons from China and Indonesia.

To support a programme of ‘Citizens Against Corruption’ in Kerala, Karnataka and Odisha, PRIA undertook field visitsto review impacts on citizens and government agencies (of schemes like PDS, NREGS, etc), and to identify future capacity development needs of grassroots groups that would sustain their campaigns against corruption and their demand for accountability.

In the project on Deepening Local Democratic Governance through Social Accountability in Asia , PRIA is working in partnership with PRIP Trust (Bangladesh) and SILAKA (Cambodia) to promote social accountability and citizen empowerment in municipal services in the towns of Rajashahi (Bangladesh) and Takhmao (Cambodia).

In addition, PRIA also conducts research on the theme of social accountability. One such intervention was documenting case studies from South and South-east Asia to prepare a perspective report on the Impact and Effectiveness of Accountability and Transparency Initiatives. Consequently using its expertise in this area as well as the documentation of its findings and learnings, PRIA is developing a distance learning course on social audit.

A policy brief paper on Establishing Social Accountability Mechanisms to Improve Municipal Service delivery has been developed to clearly define those social accountability mechanisms which have great potential for improving service delivery by public authorities in the urban context in India.

Regionally, PRIA supports critical reflection on efforts in promoting citizen empowerment and democratic accountability in Asia. The Asian Regional Conference on Effective Local Governance: Accountability, Participation and Inclusion was organised by PRIA Global Partnership (PGP), Local Governance Initiative South Asia (LoGIn), Logo Link South Asia and Institute for Governance and Development (IGD) on 2-4 June 2011, in Kathmandu (Nepal). It was conceptualised as a multi-stakeholder platform of civil society organisations, academicians, government and donor agencies to engage in debate and discussion on strengthening local governance in the Asian region. The conference was attended by 110 participants from 26 countries from South Asia, South East Asia, Latin America, Canada, Africa and Europe.