Recent thinking on the concept of ‘citizenship’ has emphasised the importance of direct citizen intervention in exercising control over state governance and in holding the state and other institutions accountable. [1]
The rights-based approach to governance, supported by the CSA, asserts that citizens are not passive users of public services but active holders of fundamental rights. This approach is based on international human rights standards. It integrates the standards and principles of the international human rights system into governance processes and views the rights of citizens as legally enforceable entitlements. It also views the full range of human rights as set out in international treaties and declarations as interdependent and indivisible. These include internationally guaranteed civil, political and cultural rights such as political participation, personal security and the administration of justice, as well as guaranteed socio-economic rights to health, education and housing. [2]
For this reason, the rights-based approach asserts that democratic states are constitutionally committed to the progressive realisation of, among others, socio-economic rights to health-care, education and social welfare within their available resources. In this context, institutions and officials responsible for managing public resources are ‘duty-bound’ to meet the public interest. They are obliged to open themselves to public scrutiny. Corruption and the misallocation of public resources constitute a violation of citizens’ basic rights to public goods and services. [3]
One of the main legislative components of the human-rights framework is the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which has been signed by over 150 states, and commits signatories to the progressive realisation within available resources of the rights to health, education, and social security, as well as the right to an adequate standard of living (food, clothing and housing) and the continuous improvement of living conditions. The commitments made within this and other international conventions open up the potential for civic organisations and development activists to monitor compliance with the progressive realisation of this broad range of political, civil and socio-economic rights. However, the CSA maintains that this potential is undermined by the current formulation of accountability within the rights-based approach.
Accountability is presently defined within the above rights-based approach as a loose political principle. The UN, for instance, defines accountability as ‘an essential principle for securing an enabling environment for development’.[4] By contrast, the CSA maintains that while accountability as a principle is consistent with undertakings to uphold citizen’s socio-economic rights (contained in the ICESCR and in the constitutions of numerous nation states), it does not explicitly guarantee the right to obtain justifications from the state for its efforts to realise these rights. While there is a duty imposed by international law and many domestic constitutions to ensure the progressively realisation of the above rights, there is no corresponding duty placed on governments to justify the steps taken to ensure their realisation.
Defining Social Accountability
For this reason, the CSA motivates to extend the rights-based approach to include social accountability as a distinct human right, which is indivisible from and interrelated with the achievement of other human rights.[5] In these terms the CSA has proposed that social accountability be defined as:
the right to obtain justifications and explanations for the use of public resources from those entrusted with responsibility for their management, whether government officials or private service providers.
The notion of justification employed within this definition involves the provision that:
those tasked with managing or deciding on the use of these resources are duty-bound to justify and explain their performance in progressively realising the human rights of those they serve.
In addition, this definition assumes that officials and service providers have the duty to take corrective action in instances where public resources are not effectively used to realise citizens’ socio-economic rights, whether due to the ineffective use or abuse of these resources.
The CSA argues that social accountability is a fundamental human right. Social accountability is defined as the right to obtain justifications and explanations for the way in which public resources are managed (whether by public officials or private service providers) and to obtain justifications for the way in which these resources serve to progressively realise people’s human rights (in particular their socio-economic rights). This definition requires that officials take corrective action in response to instances of the ineffective use or abuse of resources in order to prevent their recurrence.
Approaches to Social Accountability
It is now widely accepted that in order to ensure responsive democracy within any state, the supply of accountability must be matched by ongoing demand. In other words, the capacity of state officials to supply accountable public services needs to be matched by the capacity of civic groups to demand the right to social accountability. There are at least three approaches which civic actors may adopt when demanding the right to social accountability. These approaches, identified by the CSA, may overlap and are not mutually exclusive, although they will often involve the use of distinctive advocacy strategies. They include:
1. Policy monitoring and analysis at national/international level (focusing on analysis and amendment of policies, constitutional and legislative provisions governing democratic states at the national and/or international level – includes economic/trade policies and macro-economic budget analysis).
Advocacy strategy – direct lobbying of policy-makers by CSOs.2. Accountability system monitoring, focussing on accountability processes situated at the interface between national policy formulation and local programme/project implementation in any democratic society (focusing on the implementation of accountability systems necessary for any effective public resource management framework and required for the delivery of effective services at sub-national level).
Advocacy strategy – high profile, systematic and critical engagement with public officials and oversight bodies on the implementation of effective accountability systems.3. Social auditing at local government level (focusing on the verification of projects and implementation of public service delivery programmes at the community, constituency or local authority level).
Advocacy strategy – direct engagement with citizens and project managers and local officials.
The CSA maintains that it is not only desirable, but necessary, for civic groups adopting the above approaches to cooperate and collaborate with each other. In fact, it is a necessary condition for the process of building accountable democratic states and for ensuring social justice that civic actors simultaneously engage in monitoring and advocacy which cuts across all of the above approaches. To analyse policies without monitoring their effective implementation will limit the impact of civil society efforts to institutionalise responsive democracy.
Despite its appeal for a multi-pronged approach to accountability monitoring and advocacy, it should be acknowledged that the CSA has a particular interest in promoting the use of the second approach above, which is dedicated to strengthening the implementation of accountability systems. The CSA incorporates the Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM), which has engaged in applied social accountability monitoring and advocacy work since 1999. During this time, the PSAM has developed a set of tools for conducting ongoing, systematic monitoring and advocacy to improve the implementation of the accountability systems which make up the public resource management framework in South Africa, particularly in its Eastern Cape Province. These accountability systems include: budgeting and resource allocation; strategic planning; expenditure management; performance management; integrity management; and oversight.
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[1] Jones, E and Gaventa, 2002, The Concept of Citizenship, A Review, IDS Development Bibliography, No. 19.
[2] See UNDP, 2000, A Human Rights-based Approach to Development Programming in UNDP – Adding the Missing Link, p.2.
[3] See Ackerman, John M, February 2004, Human Rights and Social Accountability, (as yet) unpublished paper.
[4] UNDP, 2000, A Human Rights-based Approach to Development Programming in UNDP – Adding the Missing Link, p.8.
[5] This recommendation is currently under consideration by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The recommendation was made by CSA/PSAM Director Colm Allan during an invited presentation on 9 November 2006 to a United Nations Conference on Anti-Corruption Measures, Good Governance and Human Rights, organised by the office of the United nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in Warsaw, Poland. The conference subsequently adopted this recommendation. For a copy of the conference chairperson’s statement see: http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/development/governance/docs/Chairperson-Statement.pdf