But social accountability is not only a solution to inform the public about development projects. Actors in development programmes are held accountable for their activities towards the project's beneficiaries, donors and internal staff, among others. Holding these actors accountable improves the programme's effectiveness, governance and enhances its credibility.
In its first years of operation, the GSFP was confronted with several administrative and structural deficiencies. Poor coordination, limited understanding of the programme, over-politiziation, and poor financial management were complicated further by an absence of monitoring and evaluation systems and inadequate information to improve decision-making processes. In response to these challenges, the Social Accountability project was born.
Programmes suffering problems, such as the GSFP did in its initial years, need strengthened management systems, increased access to information, improved collaboration among actors and independent monitoring by civil society organizations. After collecting essential information on the implementation of the programme, SNV-Ghana and 50 local partner development organizations identified supplementary activities needed to make the programme achieve its objectives. The resulting Social Accountability Project was initiated by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development with support from the Dutch Embassy, SNV-Ghana and SIGN.
As we learnt from the Social Accountability Project, effective accountability calls for developing functional management systems, such as monitoring and evaluation, management information systems, financial management and facilitating multi-stakeholder engagements at both the supply and demand sides. Chaos arose when the GSFP was initiated without these systems in place. The Social Accountability Project has helped to improve the understanding of GSFP among implementing partners, the media and citizens. Currently, civil society organisations are participating in the whole process and their results being accepted by state actors (which is encouraging in a developing country like Ghana). Consequently, the programme can continue and expand with continuing government support.
However, the acceptance of accountability initiatives within programmes depends on the message used to communicate the initiative. In the Social Accountability Project, our message was that social accountability is not about criminalization or catching a thief, but about strengthening systems and institutions that guarantee sustainability in development results. We learnt that this effective packaging of communication messages led key stakeholders in the country to commit to strengthening accountability mechanisms.
We must also not forget the importance of civil society in making social accountability work. Social accountability is aimed at strengthening systems and institution for effective delivery. The technical expertise of civil society organisations helps to improve this delivery by engaging state actors in a fruitful and result-oriented manner.
Paying attention to social accountability can greatly improve programmes such as the GSFP. After its implementation, the programme's coverage increased to over 2000 schools and 973,313 pupils in all the 170 District Assemblies in September 2011. For SNV, the experiences with the social accountability project in GSFP laid a foundation for accountability initiatives in programmes in other countries. Considering the results achieved, I recommend that the principles of Social Accountability should be mainstreamed in all programmes to promote partnership, ownership, collaboration and transparent and effective communication.
Written by: Sarah Agbey Dedei (SNV-Ghana)
