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“Voice of the voiceless”: Learning from SORADI’s project to strengthen accountability in Hargeisa (IAAAP Paper, 2018)

Citizens’ ability to seek accountability from Hargeisa Local Council is highly constrained, SORADI’s evidence-based, coalition-building model provides some clues as to what an effective approach might look like. Diverse, highly-networked, inclusive groups of citizens can work together to design and implement advocacy strategies, creating positive momentum for change. However, the development of capable, accountable and responsive authorities requires a step-change in the quality of the Councillors, who are responsible for leadership and oversight.

The paper draws on 22 key informant interviews who have been involved in the project, including members from both accountability fora.

Click here for full paper.

Accountability for Health Equity: Galvanising a Movement for Universal Health Coverage (IDS Bulletin 49:2, 2018)

Since the publication of the 2004 World Development Report, a range of different attempts have been made to make the design, prioritisation and delivery of health services more accountable to different stakeholders. However, complex politics and power dynamics can limit or skew people’s abilities to access services or hold them to account, particularly for poor and marginalized people.

In July 2017, the IDS hosted a workshop in collaboration with Future Health Systems, the Impact Initiative, the Open Society Foundations, Unequal Voices, and Health Systems Global, to develop new thinking and practical approaches to improving accountability relationships and processes in favour of greater health equity.

This new issue of the IDS Bulletin focusses on three principal themes that emerged from this workshop as needing particular attention. First, the nature of accountability politics ‘in time’ and the importance of longitudinal approaches to change. Second, the contested politics of ‘naming’ and measuring accountability, and the intersecting dimensions of marginalisation and exclusion that are missing from current debates. Third, the shifting nature of power in global health and new configurations of health actors, social contracts, and the role of technology.

Click here for full bulletin.

People Centred Advocacy for a more Sustainable Food System (IIED Toolkit, 2018)

Fostering civic action and agency to ensure that citizens have voice and choice in relation to the food they eat is vital. However, food systems are complex and many actors help shape and influence them at local, national and international levels. By lobbying from the grassroots up, systemic changes to food systems can be made in order to address local and national challenges. This toolkit aims to provide essential guidance and ideas to advocacy professionals and civil society organisations wishing to mobilise and support low-income citizen groups to advocate for improved diets. It is ideal for civil society organisations that work with those most affected and neglected by food policy, low income consumers, producers, traders, processers and vendors – the people who form the backbone of informal food systems, but whose needs are rarely factored in by policy makers.

Click here for full toolkit.

How to use social media to engage with people affected by crisis (ICRC, IFRC, and UNOCHA, 2017)

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), with support from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), have published a brief guide on how to use social media to better engage people affected by crisis. The guide is geared towards staff in humanitarian organisations who are responsible for official social media channels.

To date, humanitarian organizations’ use of social media to engage and communicate with – not about – affected people remains vastly untapped. Practical guidance (both thematic and technical), good practices and lessons learned continue to be under researched and inadequately documented. This 20-page guide aims to address that gap, and is intended as a living tool as technology and social media platforms evolve.

Click here for full guide.

Politicians’ perspectives on voice and accountability: evidence from a survey of South African local councillors (Making All Voices Count Research Report, 2017)

A growing body of research exists on democratic accountability. Much of this research focuses on citizen strategies for expressing their views, and on efforts to hold politicians and government service providers accountable. Despite this research, little is known about how politicians in young democracies view these aspects of democratic governance.

Given that accountability can be understood as a feedback ‘loop’ between citizens and elected representatives, it is necessary to gain a better understanding of the norms and values of politicians themselves, the pressures they face and the ways that they communicate with their constituents.

This paper details findings from an original survey of approximately 1,000 South African councillors in 2016 and 2017 to explore what representation and accountability looks like from their perspective. How do they understand the various links in the accountability chain, including citizen input and deliberation, norms of good government and pressures from political parties, friends and family? The quality of democratic accountability, and the success of interventions to improve citizen representation, may depend on the norms and beliefs held by elected representatives.

Click here for for further details and to download the report.

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