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Making Accountability Count

Year: 2006
Type: report
Abstract: Making Accountability CountWhat is accountability?The concept of accountability describes the rights and responsibilities that exist between people and the institutions that affect their lives, including governments, civil society and market actors.In practice, accountability can take a number of different forms, depending on the institution in question.In general, relationships of accountability have two important components:• answerability (the right to get a response and the obligation to provide one) and,• enforceability (the capacity to ensure an action is taken, and access to mechanisms for redress when accountability fails).Work by the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation, and Accountability (Citizenship DRC) across Africa, Asia and the Americas has shown how accountability is fundamentally a relationship of power.When accountability works, citizens are able to make demands on powerful institutions, and ensure that those demands are met. Key questionsWhat is accountability?Accountability takes different forms, depending on the institutions involved.When accountability works, citizens are able to make demands on powerful institutions and ensure that those demands are met. Why does accountability count?More responsive institutions enable people to realise their rights and gain access to resources. What helps improve accountability?A range of factors influence accountability relationships, including legal frameworks, citizen engagements, how people understand accountability, and statemarket relations.Citizens use a range of informal and formal strategies to demand accountability. POLICY BRIEFINGAccountability is now a buzzword in contemporary development debates.It is central to development policy, whether government accountability (as a central component of good governance), corporate accountability (promoted by a swathe of standards and codes), or civil society accountability (claimed by people and organisations from the bottom up).Yet with so many competing ideas, interpretations and practices, it is sometimes unclear how improved accountability is directly relevant to the lives of poor and marginalised people.In order to build accountable institutions that respond to claims by citizens, it is crucial to understand how accountability matters, for whom, and under what conditions it operates.This Policy Briefing looks at who benefits from improved accountability and focuses on how people claim accountability in practice.
Source: Figshare
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2290211539
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Cited by: 14
Related to: 10