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Citizen participation should be meaningful. A meaningful participation is the one that results in change of the status quo. Experience shows that poor people do not participate in activities when they know their participation will make no difference to products being offered or decisions made because there are no mechanisms for holding providers accountable. An empowering approach to participation should therefore treat poor people as co-producers, with authority and control over decisions and resources devolved to the lowest level. Depending on the situation, participation may be direct (by individual citizens), representational (through representatives from membership-based groups and associations or committees. 2.7.2 Inclusion/ participation
Opportunities for all citizens to participate in decision-making are critical to ensure that the use of limited public resources builds on local knowledge and priorities and brings about commitment to change. In order to ensure inclusion and informed participation, it is important to ensure that the institutional rules create room for people to debate on various issues, participate in local and national priority-setting and in the delivery of basic services. Citizen participation should be meaningful. A meaningful participation is the one that results in change of the status quo. Experience shows that citizens do not participate fully in activities that they know their participation will make no difference to the existing situations. An empowering approach to participation should therefore promote partnership between the citizens and the government/institutions. Authority, control over decisions and resources should be devolved to the lowest level. Depending on the situation, participation may be direct by individual citizens such as in voting; and representational (by selecting representatives from membership-based groups and associations) such as the primary school committees in Tanzania (Fundi, 2002), the School Governing Boards (SGBs) in South Africa (Lewis and Naidoo, 2004) and the Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) and School Management Committees in Ghana (Fusheini, 2005). The basic assumption here is that the more authentic is the participation/inclusion, the more likely is the success of a particular development intervention.
2.7.3Accountability Accountability encompasses the obligations of political authorities, parties and representatives to explain their intentions and conduct to their constituencies and to voters at large and the responsibility of government agencies to fulfil their administrative and social commitments to citizens by presenting transparent periodic reports of their work for public scrutiny and discussion. Citizen action can strengthen political and administrative accountability mechanisms and put up demands for better governance and transparency. A variety of mechanisms exist to ensure greater accountability to citizens for public actions and outcomes. Access to information by citizens builds pressure for improved governance and accountability in areas such as setting priorities for national expenditure, enhancing access to quality education, ensuring that roads once financed actually get built, or seeing to it that medicines are actually delivered and available in clinics. Access to laws and impartial justice is also critical to protect the rights of poor people and pro-poor coalitions and to enable them demand accountability, whether from their governments or from private sector institutions. Citizen action can reinforce political and administrative accountability mechanisms and build pressurise on improved governance and transparency. In Tanzania, it was found that local participation in school affairs particularly financing and management through the Community Education Fund (CEF) inculcated local accountability of schools to the local communities (United Republic of Tanzania, 2003). |
