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Citizens expect their governments to deliver public services in a way that responds to their needs and recognizes their human rights. In doing so, politicians need to be held accountable for their decisions and actions. But how?
International IDEA explores the existing and emerging mechanisms for democratic accountability, including parliamentary oversight, investigative journalism and demonstrations. Key projects include supporting democratic accountability in development and public service delivery.
Democratic Accountability for Development
Democratic accountability offers citizens and their representatives the means to voice concerns, demand explanations about, and, if need be, impose consequences for the performance of elected officials, and officials of public or private service providers. Means of democratic accountability include electoral processes and parliamentary oversight, as well as reviews by supreme audit institutions, investigative journalism and public demonstrations.
We support democratic accountability because governments that are accountable to voters or to representative and oversight bodies are more likely to respond to people’s demand for development than governments that are not. Accountability is not exclusive to democracies, but when accountability is democratic, it has the potential to promote better government performance.
Throughout the process of agreeing on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, International IDEA advocated for the inclusion of democracy and accountability in the outcome document. In particular, International IDEA supported the advocacy work by researching and publishing knowledge products, including a Policy Brief on Democratic Accountability in Service Delivery within the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
Improving Democratic Accountability in Public Service Delivery
We have developed a guide for assessing democratic accountability in public service delivery, Democratic Accountability in Service Delivery: A practical guide to identify improvements through assessment. The guide allows for a locally led, participatory assessment process, and is the most recent addition to our family of citizen-led assessment frameworks, alongside the State of Democracy and State of Local Democracy Assessment Frameworks. It is as much intended to guide an assessment exercise as it is a means to generate reform proposals aimed at deepening democratic accountability in the provision of public services.
Our work is focused on supporting applications of the assessment framework and providing assistance to reform efforts driven by local actors. At the global level, more emphasis is put on distilling and comparing lessons from finalized applications. Furthermore, International IDEA is deepening and spreading its knowledge on how democratic accountability can provide sufficient sanctions, rewards and learning to encourage elected officials, and officials of public or private service providers to work in the best interests of the people
The most recent assessments were carried out in Bolivia, Haiti, Myanmar and Mongolia, and the Philippines. In the Philippines, the assessors, looked at the democratic accountability of government provided relief efforts after Typhoon Haiyan (known in the Philippines as Typhoon Yolanda). The implementing partners focused on assessing the democratic accountability of resettlement for those displaced by Haiyan in the towns of Guiuan, Eastern Samar and Palo, Leyte. The assessment looks into what positive actions citizens and their representatives can take in order to accelerate and improve the delivery of services and hold executives and service providers accountable.
Learn how you can Make a difference in your community through democratic accountability in service delivery or assess democratic accountability in your community.
