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This blog is published by the Communication for Governance & Accountability Program (CommGAP).
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Coalition Building

Scaling Up Social Accountability

Submitted by Darshana Patel on Fri, 11/06/2009 - 16:53

Strengthening accountability relationships between policy makers, service providers and citizens is at the core of the public accountability effort. But because traditional, supply-side interventions alone have not been able to deliver expected development outcomes; governance practitioners, civil society and policy-makers are increasingly looking towards citizen-driven, social accountability processes to strengthen governance and service delivery. The two approaches must be integrally linked. If governance and accountability are central to the development agenda, social accountability interventions must be a part of this agenda as well. Most governance practitioners would agree on this point.

If You Won't Quit, We'll Make You

Submitted by Antonio Lambino on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 11:17

Yesterday, I attended a session of the World Bank Institute’s Flagship Course on Health, attended by health specialists from various countries.  An expert panel shared experiences of using communication and persuasion toward bringing about pro health outcomes.  Several success stories were shared on applying behavior change communication in areas such as hygiene and sanitation, nutrition and education, and immunization in Africa and Asia.  Complementary to this focus on individual and social change was a presentation by Patricia Sosa, Esq. on experiences of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.   The organization advocates for policy change in various countries and the core of their strategy is changing the rules of the game to reduce tobacco use.

Communication and the Results Agenda

Submitted by Anne-Katrin Arnold on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 09:51

The newly launched IEG Annual Review of Development Effectiveness 2009 attests the World Bank a significant increase in development effectiveness from financial year 2007 to 2008. After a somewhat disappointing result last year, 81 % of the development projects that closed in fiscal 2008 were rated satisfactory with regard to the extent to which the operation's major relevant objectives were achieved efficiently.

One crux remains: the measurement of impact. Monitoring and evaluation components in development projects are by far not as frequent as IEG would wish: Two thirds of the projects in 2008 had marginal or negligible M&E components. Isabel Guerrero, World Bank Vice President of the South Asia Region, listed several reasons at the launch of the IEG report this week: the lack of integrative indicators, the Bank's tradition to measure outputs instead of outcomes, the lack of baseline assessments in most projects, and reluctance on the clients' side to realize M&E in projects.

Are Policy Networks Insiders or Outsiders?

Submitted by Sina Odugbemi on Tue, 09/01/2009 - 13:15

As readers of this blog will have realized, we have been watching with keen interest the effort to reform the health care system in the United States in order to pull out generalizable lessons for reform efforts elsewhere. As you must also know, over the month of August that reform effort ran into some turbulence, with lively town-hall meetings, and the rise of a blocking coalition. The outcome remains in the balance as I write.

Now, other students of the process have offered one explanation of the current challenges faced by this particular reform effort. They say that much of the effort concentrated for a long time on the Inside Game, that is getting the United States Congress to act, and keeping the discussion within authoritative state institutions. According to these observers, reformers ignored the Outside Game...building a reform coalition within the broader society, and shaping public opinion. That supposedly gave opponents of reform the chance to build what they hope will be a  blocking coalition, frame the reform effort negatively and so on. These observers believe that the Outside Game is now on, but some damage was done.

Building Coalitions: If Not through Mutual Interests, then through Mutual Gains

Submitted by Antonio Lambino on Tue, 08/25/2009 - 12:01

It’s easy to say that we need to build broad coalitions to bring about sustainable pro-poor change.  Easier said than done.   In a piece entitled “Connecting Nature’s Dots”, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman argues that

“We’re trying to deal with a whole array of integrated problems – climate change, energy, biodiversity loss, poverty alleviation and the need to grow enough food to feed the planet – separately.  The poverty fighters resent the climate-change folks; climate folks hold summits without reference to diversity; the food advocates resist the biodiversity protectors.”

Why the disconnect?  One of the reasons Friedman and his interviewees offer is that when it comes to environmental preservation, the farther humans are from experiencing nature, the harder it is for us to make the connections among environmental issues and other relevant policy and practice domains. 

A Gecko Challenging A Crocodile: Anti-Corruption Agency vs. Vested Interests

Submitted by Fumiko Nagano on Thu, 07/30/2009 - 10:24

The New York Times recently published an article about the experience of Indonesia’s anti-corruption commission, whose existence is being threatened precisely because it is so very good at doing its job of fighting corruption. Sound like a conundrum? Hardly.

It's Not Just the Money! Communication as Core Element of Governance Projects

Submitted by Anne-Katrin Arnold on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 11:29

Public trust, legitimacy of governments, and good governance may be more valuable than pushing more and more money into poor countries - money that may not even reach those who need it. This observation comes from World Bank President Robert Zoellick. He spoke at the Open Forum of the Governance and Anti-Corruption (GAC) Council this week, and paid tribute to issues that go way beyond classical development economics, such as governance and accountability. Success in these areas need to mean as much to us as the traditional loan agenda, Zoellick asserted.