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Citizens’ Voice and Accountability Evaluation – Bangladesh Country Case Study Hence through donor interventions in Bangladesh (see Box 4.3 on donor support to Rupantar), poor and marginalised citizens, including women, are now more visible and active in government administrations, justice mechanisms and so on. Given this type of external support it has been shown that not only can women become more active members of UP but will be invited to participate in other forums and have successfully contested general UP seats (competing against men). Box 4.3. From non-state to state actors: Rupantar’s capacity building work towards political inclusion The SDC-funded NGO Rupantar works specifically with women candidates for and elected women members of the UP. The establishment of networks of women at ward level through to Upazila (sub district) level ensures visibility and mutual support which builds confidence for women to exercise voice and builds a constituency of support for women elected to UP office. Rupantar also works to include the traditionally marginalised fishing communities in the political, economic and social mainstream. It has taken 10 years to develop a norm of women’s participation and establish credible women’s organisations at local level. Women have competed against men in the UP elections and won seats. Women are invited to participate in Standing Committee decisions, local shalish (dispute resolution/arbitration processes) and other village level committees. There is evidence that duty bearers are performing more satisfactorily e.g. sub assistant agricultural officers meeting farmers more regularly, teachers attending schools on time, health staff more regularly attending their duty stations − and this is attributed to the women’s groups. Source: Authors’ analysis On the whole donors have shied away from tackling capacity needs at the national level. The notable exception here is the continuing capacity building support being provided by DFID to the Ministry of Finance under the Financial Management Reform Programme (FMRP). In the area of intervening to influence centre-of-government processes, DFID amongst the donors involved in this study has done most to work to build and sustain transparency and accountability. The focus of DFID efforts to date in the FMRP has been on technical interventions to strengthen systems and procedures. The important premise here is that improved financial management systems can increase efficiency, transparency and predictability and by extension enhance accountability. These technical interventions have been carefully allied to support for “internal” accountability mechanisms which, when political power is restored, will be driven by parliamentary oversight. There is noticeably and deliberately less focus on external citizen national budget oversight in this process. This focus on internal accountability mechanism is a significant point for CVA models that reify the role of the citizen. CVA models can seem simplistic and naïve in a highly charged political economy context where gains are small, long-term and incremental. There is no simple institutional tweaking fix for political and cultural embedded norms. While “internal” accountability has voice and accountability mechanisms inbuilt which can be tackled, these are highly politicised. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) faces a backlog of accounts in part because no one wants to examine recent audits which can be used to accuse party members of poor performance. As a result accounts can be delayed for 5-6 years at which point they are irrelevant. Because of these challenging circumstances, the (limited amount of) oversight activity in the FMRP has actually been on downstream public expenditure tracking/social auditing activities, for instance of child protection services. These are seen as “sexy quick wins” by the donors and can be funded as a discrete exercise in 20
Citizens’ Voice and Accountability Evaluation – Bangladesh Country Case Study contrast to the demands of funding long, slow and intractable institutional change within government. Yet from a CVA perspective it is important for donors to keep their eye on the bigger budgetary prize of improving the flow of budget out of the Ministry of Finance rather than in settling for downstream accountability. Box 4.4. Building capacity in the centre of government: The Financial Management Reform Programme Working in the 1990s through the Reforms in Budget and Expenditure Control (RIBEC, 1993- 2001) family of projects, and subsequently through the Financial Management Reform Project (FMRP), DFID has sought to “develop accountable and transparent institutional management and operational arrangements for aggregate fiscal discipline, strategic prioritisation of expenditure and improved performance during budget execution”. The main CVA activities in the FMRP are aimed at strengthening internal accountability through support to Auditor General and Parliamentary Committees through the following project components: • Component 1: to provide improved audit reports and well-researched reports on other financial management issues for parliamentary scrutiny of public accounts • Component 5: to build the capacity of the Financial Management Academy as a sustainable centre of excellence for financial management training in government. Source: Authors’ analysis Capacity needs of non-state actors Notwithstanding the discussion above, non-state actors are key to the creation and exercise of voice, but also to ensuring that voice leads to greater responsiveness and accountability of both state and state actors. Civil society organisations, the media, trade unions and other non-traditional non-state actors such as political parties and professional associations are all involved in the creation of voice and its channelling to wider audiences. In order to fulfil these roles non-state actors require a range of specific capacities including advocacy and engagement, knowledge/awareness of rights and the capacity to participate in political processes (see Box 4.5). 21
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Development partner Strategic inten
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IV Relevant Primary and Secondary d
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II: Overall Assessment of Intervent
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Impact According to the 2007 Impact
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Model of change Assumptions Activit
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D.8. Bangladesh Sanjukta Sramic Fed
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Effectiveness BSSF provides 22 trai
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. Model of change Assumptions Activ
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D.9. Rupantar Grassroots Women’s
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Impact Phase 1 resulted in a cadre
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Figure 1. Rupantar CVA Model of Cha
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Table 2. Most significant change an
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D.10. Samata - Empowerment Through
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Lessons Learned Important lessons l
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Table 2. Most significant change an
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D.11. GTZ brokered dialogue within
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Sustainability GTZ feels that the f
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Project (Donor) Partners/ PIUs Inte
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Project (Donor) Partners/ PIUs Inte
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Annex F. Summary of Stakeholder Deb
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