State-Society Synergy for Accountability : Lessons for the World Bank
The paper first surveys the literature on accountability and establishes a categorization of the different ways by which civil society can interact with the state in order to improve accountability. It then explores in detail seven case studies of...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Publication |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2013
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2004/04/4971142/state-society-synergy-accountability-lessons-world-bank http://hdl.handle.net/10986/14944 |
| Summary: | The paper first surveys the literature
on accountability and establishes a categorization of the
different ways by which civil society can interact with the
state in order to improve accountability. It then explores
in detail seven case studies of successful experiences of
state-society synergy for accountability. The studies draw
from a wide range of different contexts (Brazil, India,
Mexico, the United States) and from a variety of different
areas of government activity (corruption control,
environmental regulation, poverty reduction, election
monitoring, infrastructure provision, school reform, police
reform). The paper concludes with a series of conceptual and
practical lessons for World Bank staff on how best to
initiate, design, and implement successful
pro-accountability mechanisms grounded in state-society
synergy. Some of the most important lessons include the need
to fully institutionalize participative mechanisms, to
involve societal actors from the very beginning of the
design stage of the process, to open up participation to a
wide diversity of social and political actors, and to
complement decentralization with centralized supervision. |
|---|