ICT Tools for Enhancing Social Accountability

Examples of ICTs for social accountability in Practice

ICT tools contribute to minimizing the existing inequality in access to information and knowledge. Hence, ICT tools can contribute to reduce corruption and improve service delivery by enhancing accountability through monitoring and citizen feedback mechanisms. In this topic, we will introduce some applications of ICT tools to monitoring and citizen feedback mechanisms for enhanced citizen participation and accountability.

The examples will focus on three main areas: Budget monitoring, civic complaints and monitoring of public service delivery

• Budget monitoring (public spending tracking)
  ICTs can help citizen get information on public expenditures, be mobilized and participate in the budget elaboration process by providing input on budget allocations and spending. ICTs can enhance participatory budgeting processes by maximizing the ability of citizens to participate (increase overall participation through reduced costs of participation) and by making the process more effective and more inclusive.
  
  
  

  Examples

  1. Where Does My Money Go?
  2. OpenSpending
• Monitoring of public service delivery
  Building on the development community experience with Citizen Report Cards, ICT facilitated user satisfaction surveys can provide ongoing and real-time feedback on citizens’ experiences and perceptions with the quality and integrity of public service delivery for better responsiveness and tracking of progress on public works and services. In these cases, as well as for the civic complaints mechanisms, it is vital the active involvement of the public sector. Without government’s response, this kind of initiatives would not reach the desired output: Improve service delivery and therefore, citizen’s quality of life. Here is an example from Streetjournal.org:
  
  
  
  Source: Presentation by Gregory Asmolov
  
  
  Examples

  1. CheckMySchool
  2. Raising the water pressure (Maji Matone)
  3. Complaint handling – Police.uk
  4. FixMyStreet
  5. SeeClickFix’s presentation, November 2011
• Civic complaints (e-grievance)
  These systems usually facilitate online transfer of grievance to concerned departments. In that way, officials and citizens can monitor the process and the progress made on the complaints.
  
  
  

  Examples

  1. Sanjog helpline by government of Orissa
  2. Population services & training center (Bangladesh)
  3. I paid a bribe