Take off of social accountability in Pakistan

The fall of Colonel Qadafi monarchist regime is the spill over effects of the democracies in the region and current democratic movements in the Arab region to topple the years long autocratic regimes. Today is the day of justice and liberation for the people of Libya which will result in more people centric government approach towards building accountability and transparency through deepening of democracy in the country. The blight of autocratic regimes in the world has really depressed the voices of the people and in most of the occasions, surrendering the basic rights bestowed under international laws. However, history tells us the bitter facts that the autocratic & monarchist regimes always fell by the revolution as experienced in many parts of the world.

Similarly, Pakistan has also been the victim of army or army led government leaving little space for the democracy and democratic regimes and values. However, the failures of previous army led government paved the way for strong urge for democracy which result in elections in 2008 and people’s led government came in to power. The revival of democracy came at the time when the country faces acute extremism, religious, social and economic problems long large. On the top of it, the democracy could not bring fruitful results for the common people due to mismanagement at macro and micro levels and rampant corruption along with weak public accountability pushes the common people under strong depression and stress.

The failure of the public accountability mechanisms despite strong opposition in shape of vibrant media and very few politicians encourages the citizen to raise their voices. This leads to demand for more transparency and accountability from the citizen. It not only enhances the citizen engagements, but also evolves such mechanisms which lead to citizens’ involvement into accountability mechanisms. Now, the country having programmes on Social Accountability which only focuses on citizen engagement in exacting the accountability pf public officials. These programmes, rather at small scale will bring results at local levels in raising the citizens’ voices.

Social accountability is an approach towards building accountability that relies on civic engagement, i.e., in which it is ordinary citizens and/or civil society organizations who participate directly or indirectly in exacting accountability (WB 2004). Social accountability is being increasingly recognized by state and non-state institutions as a means of enhancing democratic governance and improving service delivery. There are three main arguments underlying the importance of social accountability – improved governance, increased development effectiveness and ensuring empowerment. Social accountability tools include participatory budgeting, public expenditure tracking, citizen report cards, community score cards, social audit, citizen charters, public hearings, community radio, citizens’ juries etc. These mechanisms can contribute to improved governance, increased development, effectiveness through better service delivery and empowerment. The overall objective of these mechanisms is to promote transparency and accountability in the service delivery process. These mechanisms act as an empowerment tool for the citizens and enhance the level of commitment within government, especially the commitment of the political leadership and the bureaucracy.

The current exacerbating service delivery levels in the country demands the wider application of social accountability mechanisms for ensuring improved service delivery. It is of paramount importance at this stage to disseminate the knowledge of SAc tools and provide technical assistance to various service delivery organization and civil society organizations and applying these tools for improved efficiency in service delivery.

In this connection, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) led by SDPI launched “Pakistan Social Accountability Network (PSAN)” having it roots in every province of the country. More than 100 organizations ranging from policy advocacy to grass root becomes the member and join hands for effective civil society voice for exacting the public accountability. As the social accountability is a new concept in Pakistan, it is important to build the capacity of the civil society organizations to fully equip with the approach and tools. Recently, SDPI, the lead organization has delivered an interactive training workshop on “Citizen Report Card” which went very successfully. Upon successful completion of citizen participation, this will be replicated among the member of PSAN.

This network envisions a Pakistan characterized by transparent, accountable, efficient and effective public service delivery and an informed, empowered and involved citizenry.

The objectives of this network include nurture and consolidate sharing of knowledge, experience, tools, and lessons from practice among the partners of network and beyond, facilitating networking between various stakeholders (i.e. Social Accountability practitioners, researchers, universities, NGOs, government actors, the media etc.) interested in the social accountability agenda; mainstream social accountability and integrate it into country/region specific work by generating systematic approaches across networks, cultivate a domain where practitioners can get reputation, professional identity and marketability for their expertise in the area of social accountability to achieve their organizational and personal goals, builds a network of likeminded individuals and organizations to retain, exchange and manage knowledge, experiences and practices, providing a shared context for people to communicate and share information, stories, and personal experiences in a way that builds understandings and insights, stimulate learning via seminars, trainings and conferences for mentoring and coaching the ordinary citizens about their right to information, capture and diffuse new knowledge through discussion and sharing research/briefing papers that will expand the awareness of a larger system and will help in advancing the agenda of the network, and develop a cadre of trainers who can support various Governments and other interested organizations in using the social accountability tools.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=18116

Posted by Gulbaz Ali Khan on Apr 5 2012. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.