accountability

Let’s realize the potential of PPPs

Photo: rawpixel.com | Pexels

If the potential of public-private partnerships (PPPs) is to be realized, joint working within the public sector and between the public and private sectors needs to be improved.

Experience across the world has consistently identified that organizations find it difficult to effectively work together both within and across sectors. Issues of organizational objectives and priorities, individual and organizational sovereignty, status, power, resources, and culture act as barriers. This too often means that the potential outputs and outcomes from PPPs are not maximized.

Honduras launches new PPP disclosure portal

This past spring, Honduras took an important step in improving transparency and accountability with respect to Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) by launching an online platform that allows public access to detailed information about these activities.

The portal, created with the support of the World Bank and in coordination with the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST), allows access to information related to PPP projects through their entire project cycle. This is a significant achievement that promotes transparency in PPP planning, procurement, implementation and monitoring in Honduras, by making information easily accessible to citizens.

What’s the latest research on the quality of governance?

Last week I attended Stanford University’s Quality of Governance conference, expertly organized by a rising star of the field, Saad Gulzar. I thought I’d follow in the footsteps of Dave Evans and others and summarize the findings of the papers presented. They provide a sketch of the frontier of research on state capacity.

Populism and development policy

Populism – the idea that a particular social group speaks for the nation as a whole, and should be first in the line for social benefits – threatens the core values of the post-World War order. It also challenges the World Bank’s own approach to development policy. As the world prepares for the 50^th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a year-long commemoration, culminating on December 10, 2018, we at the World Bank can use the occasion to reflect on our commitments and uphold them courageously.

Can access to the World Bank archives improve health outcomes?

This blog post is a part of the International Open Access Week blog series.

The World Bank is committed to transparency and accountability and welcomes opportunities to explain its work to the widest audience possible. Openness promotes engagement with stakeholders, which in turn, improves the design and implementation of projects and policies, and strengthens development outcomes.

Demystifying appeals under the World Bank’s Access to Information policy

This blog post is a part of the International Open Access Week blog series.

Today Frances M. Allen, a Communications Officer in the World Bank’s Access to Information Policy Unit, explains how the appeals process works when a request for information is denied:

The World Bank’s Policy on Access to Information (AI), effective in July 2010, was a pivotal shift in the institution’s approach to making information available to the public. Underlying the policy is the principle that Bank will disclose any information in its possession that is not on a list of exceptions.

Open in order to end extreme poverty: Access to Information as an enabling strategy

In 2009, the World Bank envisioned “open” in exactly the same way you “see” the word . . . an open door . . . and waiting behind the door . . . access to buildings and ideas, people and events. And in the Bank’s case, access to a plethora of information on projects throughout the world, current ‘of the moment’ information on open projects, outcomes and lessons learned culled from closed projects, small grants that showed impact and improvement, research into cutting edge topics that affect everybody like climate change and displacement, and much more.

How can media inspire accountability and political participation? Findings from massive BBC programme

A recurring pattern: I get invited to join a conversation with a bunch of specialists on a particular issue (eg market systems). Cue panic and some quick skim-reading of background papers, driven by the familiar fear of finally being exposed as a total fraud (some of us spend all our lives waiting for the tap on the shoulder). Then a really interesting conversation. Relief!

Last week it was the role of the media in governance, a conversation at the "Ministry of Truth" BBC, organized by the excellent BBC Media Action, the BBC’s international development charity. Recording here.

What emerged was a picture of increasing churn and fragmentation – a media and information ecosystem that is casting off vestiges of linearity (a few big newspapers and one or two big TV and radio stations) and becoming far more complex (social media, online, local radio, ever more channels of everything).

E-bureaucracy: Can digital technologies spur public administration reform?

Editor's note: This blog post is part of a series for the 'Bureaucracy Lab', a World Bank initiative to better understand the world's public officials.

“By introducing an automated customer management system we took a noose and put it around our own necks. We are now accountable!”

This reflection from a manager in the Nairobi Public Water and Sewerage utility succinctly captures the impact of MajiVoice, a digital system that logs customer complaints, enables managers to assign the issue to a specific worker, track its resolution, and report back to the customer via an SMS. As a result, complaint resolution rates have doubled, and the time taken to resolve complaints has dropped by 90 percent.

MajiVoice shows that digital technologies can dramatically improve public sector capacity and accountability in otherwise weak governance environments. But is this example replicable? Can the increasingly cheap and ubiquitous digital technologies—there are now 4.7 billion mobile phone users in the world—move the needle on governance and make bureaucrats more accountable?

Give power to the managers and the teachers will come: Guest post by Jacobus Cilliers

This is the ninth in our series of job market posts this year.

Teachers’ attendance can be improved if they are monitored by head-teachers using mobile technology, but only if the associated reports trigger bonus payments.

Policy question
Can high-stakes decentralized monitoring improve civil servant performance, or will it lead to collusion between the monitor and civil servant? And what happens to the quality of information when we raise the stakes of reports?

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