Seven Challenges For Accountability 2.0 - Institute of Development Studies

2/1/23, 8:49 AM Seven challenges for accountability 2.
0 - Institute of Development Studies
News & opinion Opinion
OPINION
Seven challenges for

accountability 2.0
Published on 28 September 2017
Anuradha
Joshi
Research Fellow
Over the summer, I participated in a lively workshop on “Unpicking

Power and Politics for Transformative Change: Towards
Accountability for Health Equity,” which triggered several thoughts
about current challenges in work on community-led
accountability.
https://www.ids.ac.uk/opinions/seven-challenges-for-accountability-2-0/ 1/8
2/1/23, 8:49 AM Seven challenges for accountability 2.0 - Institute of Development Studies
Here they are in no particular order:
1. Merely thinking about “states” and “citizens” is too limiting

First, from the discussions it seems clear we are in a different type of
situation today than we were twenty years ago. The citizen-state
framework for thinking about accountability which was dominant in the
late 1990s and early 2000s has limited use.
Now, there is a more nuanced understanding that multiple actors – both

state and non-state, national and transnational – are heavily involved in
the production of public goods, in all stages – from policy influencing to
delivery.
In particular, this means taking seriously the structures for accountability

of market actors. The influence of corporate interests in the provision of
public goods as well as the entry of a large number of unregulated
providers poses a big threat to both accountability and inclusion.
One of the key issues includes the ways in which donor enthusiasm for
tech solutions combined with tech interests maybe skewing tech choices
for accountability work, as highlighted by the work of the Making All

Voices Count (MAVC) programme (PDF).
As Jonathan Fox points out, strategies for accountability in such

situations need to work at multiple sites and levels simultaneously. This
implies a shift from the very local, which has been the focus of
accountability work in the past decade to include other levels and
arenas, including the use of law and litigation for advancing rights.
This means that accountability efforts will be even more challenging than
before, more like guerrilla warfare than a conventional war.
We are already seeing this in the prevalence what my colleagues call

“unruly politics“, in which spontaneous and often ‘uncivic’ social action is
the last resort of desperate populations.
2. We need to think more strategically about where public power

(actually) lies
In this complex system, following the World Development Report of 2004,
scholars and practitioners have focussed a lot on citizen action for direct
accountability from providers, often termed social accountability.
But in the broader accountability eco-system, we need to think more

strategically on where power lies, and the interests and incentives behind
public action.
We need to ask questions like:
What are the interests and incentives public officials face?

How might they come around to a more reformist mind set?
Where do politicians electoral calculations align with the inclusion and

accountability agenda?
3. Current political ideologies and religion are increasingly

fracturing shared moral norms
We need to take more seriously the rising role of ideology and religion in
fracturing the shared moral norms that underpin the implicit social
contract. At the heart of accountability claims are broadly collective
understandings of a moral economy that cannot easily be breached.
For example, the legal case against the government on the Right to Food
in India argued that the Indian government could not allow starvation
deaths when the state had a huge supply of grain in storage.
Increasingly these norms are getting fractured along ideological or

religious lines, but they are also shaping who gets to govern (for example,
the rise of Trump in the USA, Modi in India and Dueterte in the Philippines),
leading to even greater challenges for collective action by marginalised
groups.
4. Closing of civic spaces by governments afraid of citizen voice

Monitoring and surveillance of citizens and organizations including on the
Internet and the use of nationalistic arguments to censor and silence
people is a real problem as accountability work is basically about social
actors challenging governments.
If civic groups cannot carry out their work unhindered then the outlook for
citizen-led accountability is poor.
The latest CIVICUS Monitor points out that almost ten percent of the
world’s population lives in countries with closed civic space and over a
third live in countries with repressed civic space. And in several countries,
such repression is growing.
Simultaneously, governments are using increasingly sophisticated

technology and social media to ‘manufacture consent, sabotage dissent’
and shape public attitude to democratic dissent.
The challenge for the development community is what to do in the face of

this growing tide of civic manipulation and repression.
5. The politics of (competing sources of) evidence

Information is a core part of any accountability efforts. And evidence-
based policy-making has gained credibility within a range of
development actors.
Yet, with the prevalence of multiple sources of information and related

credibility issues with many sources, accountability efforts can stall.
Powerful actors can employ what an analyst calls the “4D strategy – deny,
distort, distract and dismay”. The battle for accountability occurs
increasingly in the media, including social and alternative media. We are
part of this, in what we focus on in research and in practice.
How in this post-truth world can we build a broad and credible evidence
strategy that can be the basis of accountability claims?
6. Parallel worlds of accountability?

Put crudely, there seem to be two sets of accountability worlds.
On the one hand there are the BRICS and the MICS – countries with
growing economies and rising influence in the world such as China, India,
and Brazil, followed closely by Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey. These are
useful laboratories for testing new models for how accountability might be
institutionalised.
On the other hand about half of the world’s poorest population will be
living in states affected by fragility and conflict. In them, armed groups,
religious factions, private actors co-exist with state institutions.
The big challenge here, which we are attempting to address in the Action
for Accountability and Empowerment (A4EA) led by IDS is to understand
how action for accountability might work in these new settings, where
informal institutions, multiple sources of authority and low state capacities
prevail.
How can processes of accountability building emerge and be sustained?
7. How do we know whether accountability work has any impact

(on poverty, inequality and sustainability)?
Finally, accountability work faces the challenge of impact: how will we
assess whether any of our efforts have made a difference?
And here we are not talking about RCT-type evaluations of impact that
look at whether health or education outcomes improved.
Rather in accountability work it is important to go beyond the

improvements in services to track and value other important outcomes
such as outcomes of empowerment, (increases in awareness, collective
capacity to claim rights), as well as any changes in levels of trust,
legitimacy and political commitment on the part of relevant institutions.
Although accountability might be the key concept of the 21st century as

Tom Carothers suggested in his influential keynote address to the Global
Partners Forum of the GPSA last year, building accountability from below
is going to be a slow and long term process in which addressing the
challenges outlined above will be key to progress.
Image credit: Lord Jim (Flickr)
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PROJECTS
Accountability for Health Equity Programme Making All Voices Count
PROGRAMMES AND CENTRES
Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA)
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2/1/23, 8:49 AM Seven challenges for accountability 2.

0 - Institute of Development Studies

News & opinion Opinion

Seven challenges for

Over the summer, I participated in a lively workshop on “Unpicking

Here they are in no particular order:

1. Merely thinking about “states” and “citizens” is too limiting

Now, there is a more nuanced understanding that multiple actors – both

In particular, this means taking seriously the structures for accountability

for accountability work, as highlighted by the work of the Making All

As Jonathan Fox points out, strategies for accountability in such

We are already seeing this in the prevalence what my colleagues call

2. We need to think more strategically about where public power

But in the broader accountability eco-system, we need to think more

We need to ask questions like:

What are the interests and incentives public officials face?

Where do politicians electoral calculations align with the inclusion and

3. Current political ideologies and religion are increasingly

Increasingly these norms are getting fractured along ideological or

4. Closing of civic spaces by governments afraid of citizen voice

Simultaneously, governments are using increasingly sophisticated

The challenge for the development community is what to do in the face of

5. The politics of (competing sources of) evidence

Yet, with the prevalence of multiple sources of information and related

6. Parallel worlds of accountability?

How can processes of accountability building emerge and be sustained?

7. How do we know whether accountability work has any impact

Rather in accountability work it is important to go beyond the

Although accountability might be the key concept of the 21st century as

Image credit: Lord Jim (Flickr)

About this opinion

Accountability for Health Equity Programme Making All Voices Count

PROGRAMMES AND CENTRES

Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA)

Between the Lines Podcast

Podcast S04 Ep10: Intimacy and injury – In the wake of #MeToo in

Shandana Khan Mohmand

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