Citizen Engagement in sub-Saharan Africa - Implications for Corruption and Accountability

8/2/2019 Citizen Engagement in sub-Saharan Africa - Implications for Corruption and Accountability

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Citizen Engagement and Accountability in Combatting Corruption for Better Service

Delivery in sub-Saharan Africa - Implications for Governments, International

Development Partners and Civil Society

Alexander ORiordan

Introduction

What power means is sometimes better understood by its absence. When denied agency

or unable to defend ones interests, citizens become acutely aware of the limitations of

their power. However, when service is delivered and citizens are unaware, power is

more difficult to understand. More problematically, when one has power it is very

difficult to fully comprehend the impact power has on others; the very nature of power

means that those that have it rarely hear uncomfortable truths from those that dont.

This is important to understand because government decision makers and international

development partners frequently have more power than citizens and civil societyrepresentatives with whom they engage. A key limitation is that when those in power

attempt to improve accountability they frequently underestimate the very reason so few

accountability interventions are sustainable: namely that the resources to enable

accountability cannot be controlled by the very people to be held accountable.

This chapter reviews trends in accountability and citizen engagement in sub-Saharan

Africa with intention to draw the readers attention to some of the dynamics that

influence efforts to improve service delivery and combat corruption. The chapter first

explores public perceptions of governance and accountability in sub-Saharan Africa. It

then covers commonly identified challenges to citizen engagement, accountability,

expectations and demands through case studies from Malawi, Mozambique and Kenya.

The chapter then explores how citizen engagement and accountability improves service

delivery and combats corruption. Finally, the chapter explores social and political factors

of success in promoting accountability and citizen engagement with specific reference to

the disproportionately large role international development partners play in both

promoting and limiting the reach of accountability actors. This last section also unpacks

the dynamic that prevents the powerful from understanding the reach of their power

Paper submitted as background material to the Workshop held in Marrakesh, Morocco, on 26-27October 2011, entitled Engaging Citizens to Strengthen Accountability and Prevent Corruption and co-

organized by the Division for Public Administration and Development Management of the

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, in cooperation with the United

Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The contents and opinions are the authors and do not

necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its member States. The author welcomes

comments to: [email protected]


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and how the same dynamic is intensified in the relationship between international

development partners and civil society. Because donors contribute such a high

proportion of public expenditure towards the MDGs, the chapter then comments on

donor driven trends with a specific emphasis on the potential impact the 2005 Paris

Declaration on Aid Effectiveness could have on accountability, corruption and service

delivery in sub-Saharan Africa.

The chapter concludes with practical recommendations to international development

partners, partner governments and accountability actors on possible priorities to

considering in improving citizen engagement, domestic accountability and combatting

corruption.

Challenges to Citizen Engagement and Accountability in Combatting Corruption:

Expectations and Demands

African governments have made measurable progress on meeting the MDGs since 19901.

The proportion of sub-Saharan Africans living on less than USD 1.25 a day is

measurably lower; there have been measurable improvements in employment

opportunities for the poor and measurable progress on child health. However, when it

comes to primary school enrolment (up over 40%), under five mortality (down a third)

and maternal mortality rates (down a quarter) governments in sub-Saharan Africa have

a lot to be proud of. Unfortunately, progress against the MDGs is rarely seen as being

equitable; excluded and minority populations are often the last to benefit and there is

still too much lost to diversion and leakages influenced by elites.

Elected and appointed officials2 have enormous power to determine citizen access to

services. Access to public services such as health, education, security or rule of law are

strong determinants of social mobility and the likelihood of moving out of poverty.

Ideally, limited public resources should be spent on providing appropriate services in a

cost-effective and equitable manner. However, opaque decision-making often leads to

inappropriate service delivery, unequal access, poor use of resources and even

corruption. Disempowered citizens, minorities, women, youth and the elderly are often

worst affected, with an accordant impact on chronic poverty.

1The Millenium Development Goals Report 2011 , UN: www.un.org/milleniumgoals2 Drawn from cases in the chapter on HIV/AIDS response in Mozambique, service delivery in Kenya and the

role donor financing plays in service delivery in sub-Saharan Africa.


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To understand what this means, the reader should recognise that power is constantly

reaffirmed because decision makers3 are situated to routinely influence service delivery.

It is hard to conceive of a context in which the drive for and use of power is satiated. A

more realistic understanding would be to say that the drive for and use of power is, in

itself, insatiable. Power and the accompanying drive for power continuously seek

opportunities to express itself. A realistic approach to accountability measures shouldconclude that accountability does not fully contain the drive to expand power but rather

holds it in check in prescribed circumstances; restrictions to the use of power in a

particular circumstance only redirects power and the drive for power to another arena. A

good metaphor might be that of keeping a ship afloat: plugging a leak only gives the

captain time to find the next one. As such, citizen engagement and accountability is

better understood as an on-going, adaptive and evolving process based on a continual

and meaningful dialogue between citizens and decision makers.

Accountability is not necessarily directed to citizenry; in many cases, often due to

increasingly sophisticated technocracies4

, accountability is to public bodies responsiblefor representing citizens. A good example of this (known as horizontal accountability) is

a ministrys accountability to complaints raised to or by an ombudsman or public

protector. Conversely, vertical accountability holds decision makers accountable to the

citizenry, the most obvious example being democratic elections.

Due to the complex nature of accountability it is influenced by many factors including,

the legislative environment and effectiveness of the courts, electoral systems,

employment contracts, procurement systems and the nature of funding, where it is

allocated, and what it is restricted to. When one includes the enormous role that

international development partners play in service delivery in sub-Saharan Africa, the

environment is further complicated. Despite the good intentions, international

development partners typically enjoy diplomatic immunity from prosecution and are

not directly accountable to African citizens neither through the electorate nor by any

other means. This would be of little consequence if it were not for the fact that

international development partners often fund more services5 that national governments

in sub-Saharan Africa.

3 The case of Muslims for Human Rights (Muhuri) in Kenya applies; after exposing CDF funds being

diverted Muhuri was simply denied further access by key decision makers.4 Sophisticated technocracies that require new skills to engage with include: the newly established aid

architectures and lead donor arrangements that determine how funding for service delivery is allocated;

another example is the EUs recently announced sector reform contracts (Brussels 13.10.2011 COM(2011) 637

final) that replace sector budget support mechanisms.5 An interactive table in the Financial Times in 2008 drawn from World Bank data identifies donors as

spending more than national governments in Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo,

Ethiopia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Tanzania

with donor spending being approximately the size of governments in Senegal, Uganda and Zambia

(amongst others).


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Holding decision makers accountable fundamentally means challenging their decisions

or at least demanding greater transparency. Except in situations where decision makers

want their decisions to be scrutinised and challenged, this means that citizen

engagement and accountability is always about unwillingly contesting decisions and

actions even when that challenge originates from within government, parliaments orpublic institutions. Although engaging decisions makers can be done in a constructive

manner, it is necessarily about applying pressure or the threat of pressure 6. It is nave to

conceptualise of accountability and challenging corruption without recognising its

conflictual nature. Taking unchecked power and decision making to task is rarely

conceded without resistance.

At a first step, then, it is important to keep in mind that policy and legislative changes

may enable accountability but do not ensure it. An enabling environment creates space

for: participation and change in service delivery, an independent media that plays the

role of a watchdog, and civil society organisations that can lobby for inclusion andmobilise citizens to prevent corruption and resist vested interests. Citizen engagement,

accountability and combatting corruption, however, need to be specifically and

separately resourced. In this regard, citizen engagement and social accountability is

often accompanied by well-resourced civil society organisations and independent public

interest institutions. This typically means functioning and accessible administrative

justice, resourced public protectors, and ombudsmen with wide mandates. Critically it

also means well-resourced and independent civil society organisations that when

needed can finance legal defences and/or actions or provide protection to witnesses and

whistle-blowers. A large proportion of the challenges faced in sub-Saharan Africa are

directly associated with poorly resourced African organisations with insufficient

attention to these gaping needs.

Afrobarometer: What does Citizen Engagement and Accountability Mean in sub-

Saharan Africa?

6Even donors are uncomfortable with greater scrutiny; David Mosse (2005:ix) reports that his research onthe ethnography of aid provoked the following response from the donor when it became apparent that his

research did not conclude donor intentions are identical with those stated by senior managers: My refusal tosuspend publication, to consider revising my analysis in substance and to meet the concerned group with that objective,

provoked written complaints to my academic managers, my universitys research ethics committee, the Chair of myanthropological association (the ASA) and my publisher, stating that the book provided an unbalanced and damagingaccount of the project and will harm the professional reputations of many of those who worked at the project and the

future work of the agency with poor tribal communities in India. Eventually, a group of four project managers (formermanagers and field staff among them) flew to London and joined some of my UK consultant colleagues to present theirobjections to the manuscript to myself, the university, the ASA and others in a day-long meeting.


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A good way to frame citizen engagement and accountability in sub-Saharan Africa is in

research led by the Afrobarometer7. Afrobarometer has led a number of studies on

governance and democracy including in Benin, Burkina Faso, Botswana, Cape Verde,

Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia,

Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Together the

studies provide a broad-based and widely quoted baseline on citizen perceptions ofgovernance and democracy.

2008 surveys8 demonstrate telling challenges to accountability in sub-Saharan Africa. In

the countries surveyed only two fifths of respondents agreed that people/citizens are

bosses and that government should behave like an employee of the people. Tellingly, in

six African countries, two thirds of respondents rejected this notion and were more

inclined to agree with the notion that government is more like a parent that needs to

look after its citizens like parents do their children.

Despite the clear emphasis on governments playing a paternalistic role , it should not beconcluded that autocratic rule is expected by Africans. 60% of respondents agreed that

Africans should question their leaders more. And, the majority of citizens surveyed,

reject one party rule and believe in multi-party democracy.

However, only two fifths of respondents believe that elected officials should be held

accountable to voters. The remaining respondents place responsibility on the president,

parliament or part to hold elected officials to account. This finding should be considered

against the finding that the vast majority of respondents reject the notion of a strong

man dictator and strongly support term limits.

Some critics read these responses as an indication that Africans do not necessarily want

or believe in citizen based accountability or transparent democracy. However, there is

another and more plausible explanation for why Africans say they want accountable

democratic institutions but do not believe citizens should be at the front-line of

demanding accountability. In many places in sub-Saharan Africa citizens feel powerless

to prevent elites from coercing them. In order to remedy this situation, safety and civil

rights must be secure, access to rule of law and impartiality of the courts needs to be

ensured. Any rational actor feeling their safety is threatened would call for a

paternalistic state in which accountability is the responsibility of institutions and/or

individuals that are resourced and protected. In other words, resistance to directly

engage and hold decision makers accountable in Africa should not be read as a cultural

7 www.afrobarometer.org8 Analyses made with reference to combined data presented by Mattes, R (2009) Overview: Controlling Power-

Africans Views on Governance, Citizenship andAccountability inANSA Social Accountability in Africa SourceBook, Pretoria: ANSA-Africa; www.ansa-africa.net


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phenomenon; rather, it is more accurately correlated with citizens that have weak

defences against retaliation.

Horizontal Accountability: The Ombudsman with Reference to the Case in Malawi

Vertical accountability typically refers to non-state actors and their role in holding

decision makers to account. The type of accountability called for in the Afrobarometer

findings is horizontal accountability and is primarily state led. Horizontal accountability

depends on mechanisms such as parliamentary oversight, strong ombudsman offices,

access to and working administrative justice systems.

An ombudsman is a publicly financed office established to guard against the arbitrary

use and misuse of power in a democracy9. An ombudsman is typically resourced to

investigate a limited number of cases involving abuse of power and authority and to

recommend either remedial or legal actions when applicable. The ombudsman is animportant institution because it is a public recognition and allocation of resources

indicating that governments can and want to combat abuse of power (within

government/public institutions). It is also important because being empowered to

address investigations from within government, the ombudsmans office has access to

senior decision makers as well as the capacity to understand the technocratic complexity

of government decision making.

The ombudsman, however, should not be mistaken for being primarily responsible for

ensuring accountability. At the most basic level, the ombudsman is financed by the same

government that it is charged with holding in check. As such the ombudsmans office is

often compromised by an incentive to resolve disputes rather to thoroughly investigate

and hold officials accountable. Furthermore, the capacity of the ombudsman is always

limited by both its mandate and its resource base. In most cases, the ombudsman makes

recommendations only; when recommendations are unpalatable officials have no

obligation to implement them. In other words the ombudsmans decision is not binding;

as many citizens have learned, the implied promise of protection from an ombudsman is

little more than an illusion.

In sub-Saharan Africa the ombudsman is a relatively new institution that is associated

with governments being more willing to invite oversight. Despite its limitations, it

should be emphasized that the ombudsman is an accessible and public mechanism thathas the potential to draw the attention of decision makers. Furthermore, the willingness

of some countries (e.g. Uganda and Lesotho) to further extend the role of the

ombudsman from a focus on administrative oversight to include human rights,

9 Chibwana, E.D.A (2009) The Role of the Ombudsman in Ensuring an Accountable Public Service Malawis

Experience inANSA Social Accountability in Africa Source Book, Pretoria: ANSA-Africa; www.ansa-africa.net


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corruption and even environmental oversight should be seen as a positive step in

improving accountability.

In Malawi, the office of the ombudsman has gone a step further. In a landmark legal

ruling in 200010 , the office of the ombudsman won the right to hear cases in

circumstances where legal options are not reasonably available. Furthermore, the officeof the ombudsman in Malawi has, remarkably, managed to extend its authority beyond

issuance of recommendations to include binding decisions11. This has important

implications for administrative law and citizen based accountability. Legislation without

implementation is a toothless tiger; in allowing the ombudsman access to binding

decision Malawi has transformed administrative law into a mechanism of accountability.

The Malawi example, in which an ombudsman can make binding decisions, is rare. In

most cases institutions are willing to give the ombudsman space to raise concerns but

not to make binding decisions. In the United Nations system, for example, the

ombudsman has no enforcement capacity. The case of Malawis strong ombudsman isunusual for a number of reasons but perhaps the most powerful distinction is that it is

afforded protection and a resource base that includes strict codes of conduct,

prescriptions against potential conflicts of interest when recruiting staff to the

ombudsman office. Furthermore, the ombudsman resource base is strengthened with

contractual stability by giving key staff five year employment contracts.

Despite these protections, even Malawis ombudsman is constantly at threat from a

Treasury that can arbitrarily reduce12 funding without justification. The threat of

funding being withdrawn is a serious coercive pressure that should not be

underestimated. As I will show later in this chapter, the role funding plays in coercing

accountability actors is wide spread in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, in many ways

the threat of losing funding, has more impact on accountability actors than when

funding is not available in the first place. The implied threat of losing funding forces

accountability actors to choose between policing themselves and making every decision

a potentially exhausting act of resistance.

Parliamentary Oversight: Mozambique

The HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa has devastated millions of lives,

destroyed family units and deprived generations of education and parental role models.While the epidemic itself may have been unpreventable, its consequences could have

10 Civil Appeal 47 of 2000 The ombudsman vs. Malawi Broadcast Corporation in above reference.11 These decisions are legally enforceable unless over-turned by the Malawis High Court12 Chibwana, E.D.A (2009:93) The Role of the Ombudsman in Ensuring an Accountable Public Service Malawis

Experience inANSA Social Accountability in Africa Source Book, Pretoria: ANSA-Africa; www.ansa-africa.net


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been greatly diminished through more accountable service delivery earlier on in the

epidemic. As in many countries, parliament adopted a relatively progressive strategy

and narrative to combatting HIV and AIDS. However, in Mozambique, Parliament went

further with particular members taking a more proactive role and using Parliamentary

oversight mechanisms to make service delivery more responsive and appropriate.

Mozambican Honourable Member of Parliament Meneses13 points out that

parliamentary oversight comes through reviewing reports of the ombudsman, calling

for information, asking questions, making requests, petitioning the executive and

holding hearings. In the case of Mozambique, parliamentary response to the HIV and

AIDS pandemic evolved from ad hoc statements to notable legislative responses. Mainly

due to pressure from disaffected voters, parliament responded by legislating against

discrimination and compulsory HIV testing set the foundation for better rights for HIV

infected persons. This legislation created an entry point for civil society and other actors

that lobbied Mozambiques parliament to hold hearings on the wider implications of

HIV and AIDS that is seen as the starting point for parliamentary action.

However, it was not until the arrival of donors that parliamentary oversight in

Mozambique increased its reach. While parliament agreed to establish a National

Parliamentary Group for Prevention and Fight against HIV/AIDS in 2005, it was only

when donors provided resources that the group was able to carry out field visits,

develop an action plan and identified un-serviced areas. Mozambiques parliament

successfully raised additional funds from several donors to implement [their] work

plan.14 The work plan and activities involved costly and human resource intensive

commitments such as in conducting fact finding visits, launching consultations,

advocacy and publicity and in the development of seven briefings between 2006 and

2009. The extra impetus provided by donors led to the parliamentary led, establishment

of an anti-retroviral factory and policies on provision of nutritional supplements. It

should be kept in mind that donor disbursements to Mozambique are enormous

averaging close to USD 2 billion a year and comprising over three fifths of public

expenditure in 200815. In Mozambique donors spend USD 1.67 for every USD 1 in

government budget.

The lesson of Mozambique can be read as that of parliamentarians using their

investigative and information collection authority to hold the Executive accountable and

improve service delivery. However, it is important to note that MP Meneses (2009:104)

conclusions on the impetus for parliamentary oversight driven accountability recognise

13 Meneses, IJ (2009) Parliamentary Oversight of the HIV and AIDS Pandemic The

Case of Mozambique in ANSA Social Accountability in Africa Source Book,

Pretoria: ANSA-Africa; www.ansa-africa.net14 Ibid. Page 10015 See OECD.org; Aid Statistics compared with World Bank development statistics on government budgets.


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that parliamentarians were enabled by direct political incentives in responding to the

needs of a mobilised electorate as well as the incentive provided by donor financing. A

political economy perspective would go further to conclude that action was caused by

the significant push factor of a disgruntled and mobilised economic group (HIV positive

workers) combined with the pull factor of available donor resources. These twin

incentives created a good environment for parliamentarians to improve citizenengagement and accountability. In other words, it might be more realistic to view the

success of Mozambiques parliamentarians through the lens of incentives.

Vertical Accountability: Muslims for Human Rights in Kenya

Lacking an environment conducive to openly critique government, some accountability

actors call on innovative and often unexpected methods to get access to decision makers.

One such tool is the social audit. In a social audit, community members use local

knowledge to examine the success of a project typically, by physical inspection, byasking community members about its impact and by assessing how well local public

resources are being managed.

Muslims for Human Rights16 (Muhuri), a Mombasa-based NGO, dismayed by Kenyas

poor ranking on the Open Budget Index, decided to run social audits on constituency

development fund (CDF) projects in Changamwe and Bahari. The CDF was established

by the government in 2003 and was designed to overcome the frustration of elected

officials being blamed for national development processes that were not delivering at the

community level and that they had little or no control over. The fund effectively gives

elected officials carte blanche to design, manage and implement programmes in theirconstituencies. Money available is significant. Initially, it started at 2.5% of government

revenue and was recently raised to 7.5% in 2009. Wanjiru Gikonyo, coordinator of the

CDF accountability project, pointed out that in the 2009 financial year, each

constituency will get about Ksh183 million (US$2.3 million) through CDF, up from the

previous average of Ksh60 million (US$750,000).17

Three quarters of the allocated funds are divided equally among Kenyan constituencies

and the remaining quarter goes to specific anti-poverty measures. On the positive side,

the CDF is seen as bypassing partisan national politics and bringing development

directly to constituencies. This earns local support and dampens suspicion of

widespread corruption and mismanagement in central government. On the negative

side, CDF is criticised as being non-transparent because it operates independently of

district development planning and decentralisation processes. Resources are allocated at

the discretion of elected officials who are not required to consult, or be accountable to,

16www.openbudgetindex.org:Social Budgets in Kenya: Budget Transparency and Accountability17TheEast African, 29 June 2009


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local communities. Hence a call by Ms Gikonyo for citizens to get out of their comfort

zones and actively track CDF spending in our constituencies, not to win contracts for

our side businesses but to promote development and accountability.18

Another concern is that, because the CDF vests so much decision-making power in

elected officials, it effectively enables them to buy the support of their constituencies.Interestingly, however, this did not materialise in Kenyas 2007 elections. The CDF

Accountability Project19 reported that 60% of elected officials lost their seats despite

having had four years of effective control over CDF resources. The CDF Accountability

Project argued that mismanagement of CDF funds directly contributed to the electorate

rejecting incumbents.

In reality, CDF projects are not held in high regard at local level. Local authorities and

CSOs interviewed in March 200920 in Kitui, Karamoja and Kitale see CDF projects as

parallel to existing activities, often duplicating services and facilities such as schools and

clinics. CDF projects are rarely integrated into district planning. The result is schoolswithout teachers and clinics without health workers. A 2008 study argued that it is

virtually impossible to access CDF records on demand from CDF committees and that

this official secrets mentality facilitated a culture of corruption and impunity.21

These experiences are reinforced by social audits carried out by Muhuri, which

struggled unsuccessfully for two years against resistant officials to gain access to CDF

documents. Eventually it resorted to pretending to conduct a training exercise to gain

permission for a social audit of CDF projects in Changamwe and Bahari. The results

were illuminating. Community members reported, among other things, that Bahari

projects supposedly completed were not, that a completed road had no gravel, and that

labourers had never been paid. A contractor billed for new building materials when the

actual project was built from materials recovered from an old structure.

This sort of guerrilla activism ought to lead to improved citizen engagement,

accountability and eventual service delivery. However, even when the responsible

officials realised that the information gathered was unfavourable they simply refused to

participate further and declined to respond to community queries.

One would think that the risk of not being re-elected combined with cost-effective

methods of engaging citizens in combatting corruption would be effective disincentives

to corruption in the local political arena. However, the problem is structural. KenyasGDP per capita is just over US$800 in real terms. A Kenyan police officer salary starts at

18 Ibid.

19 www.cdfproject.org.

20 DANIDA Kenya, 2009.

21 www.cdfproject.org.


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under US$1,60022 a year, while politicians earn a tax-free annual salary of around

US$190,000. CDF projects amount to more than a million dollars a year for each

constituency. Corruption or misuse of CDF funds incurs a maximum fine of US$3,000,

presuming that a person can be caught and appropriately prosecuted. A combination of

low prosecution rates, lack of disincentives, a malleable justice system and the large

resources available contribute to the commonly expressed opinion: it is only to beexpected that Kenya politicians choose to maximise their compensation in the short term

rather than working to serve their constituencies.23

The incentives to divert funds from the Constituency Development Fund outweigh

citizen incentives to demand greater accountability. At the same time the disincentives to

citizens in calling for greater accountability far outweigh the disincentives decision

makers incur in being held to task for diverting CDF resources. Given the mix of

incentives and disincentives one could conclude that the imbalanced playing field is a

key factor inhibiting greater citizen participation in accountability and combatting

corruption in the CDF in Kenya.

Shaping Accountability

The Afrobarometer data shows that in sub-Saharan Africa, citizens want a paternalistic

state that is held to account by the powerful. Africans also want working multi-party

democracies, term limits and accountable politicians. Africans want working multiparty

democracies but prefer accountability to be the responsibility of those already in power.

The case study of Malawi demonstrates the enormous potential public interest bodies

like the ombudsman have to change the terms of the debate and to challenge corruption.

With a good enabling environment it is clear that public institutions in sub-Saharan

Africa have the potential to combat corruption to improve service delivery. However,

public institutions are limited to their respective mandates and are vulnerable because

they do not have secure/independent funding bases.

The role Mozambican parliamentarians played in shaping government response and

service delivery in the face of the HIV/AIDS pandemic demonstrates the power

parliamentarians have over the executive. It also demonstrates the power information

sharing, advocacy and public consultations can play in drawing the attention of decision

makers to the need for better service delivery. However, despite the HIV/AIDS pandemic

22 New Salary Scale for Disciplined Services, 2008.Office of the Prime Minister, Government of Kenya.

23 A new bill was presented to the Kenyan Cabinet in July 2009 (reported in Daily Nation, 24 July 2009) to

improve transparency in the management of CDF resources. It remains to be seen if it will be passed

and what effect it may have.


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running rampant in the nineties, it was only after donors provided resources and

incentives to parliamentarians in 2005 that they managed to get traction.

And, in Kenya, Muslims for Human Rights demonstrated the power of citizen

engagement in exposing misuse of funds intended for public services. As in the cases

before, however, a lack of protection means that Muslims for Human Rights is easilysanctioned without being afforded any due process. Furthermore, not having access to

independent resources makes it a daunting task to seek recourse through the legal

system or other accountability mechanisms. Finally, the sheer scale of resources available

compared with the low level of punitive disincentives actually incentivise decision

makers to divert public resources.

The cross-cutting conclusion across the case studies is that Africans want accountable

and transparent service delivery but face significant coercive disincentives to demand it.

These disincentives include threats of violence or economic abuse but more importantly

are related to cutting or limiting funding to accountability actors. Without access to anefficient justice system that protects accountability actors and without a reliable,

independent resource base, it is unclear how accountability will ever take root in a

sustainable manner in sub-Saharan Africa.

Resources: The role of Development Partners in Citizen Engagement, Accountability

and Combatting Corruption in Service Delivery24

OECD donor data shows that between 1997 and 2009 aid to Kenya grew four-fold from

USD 447 million a year to just under USD 1.8 billion. The growth of non-profit

organizations has grown similarly with an almost five-fold increase in registered NGOs

between 1997 and 2005.

1997 2005 Percentage Change

Organisation Type

Self-help groups 16 208 185 722 1,145%

NGOs 836 4099 490%

Youth groups 3426 11 083 323%

Women groups 85 205 135 294 159%

Source: K. Kanyinga et al (2007), The Non-Profit Sector in Kenya, University of Nairobi, AgaKhan Development Network

24Some of the analysis on accountability in Kenya is drawn from ORiordan, A (2009) Towards an Enabling

Environment for Social Accountability in Kenya in ANSA Social Accountability in Africa Source Book, Pretoria:

ANSA-Africa; www.ansa-africa.net


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Large increases in foreign aid and the number of NGOs, however, do not necessarily

result in better accountability. Civil rights practitioners observe that the official role of

CSOs and NGOs today is not dissimilar to their role in the 1980s and 1990s when the

Moi regime was overwhelmingly dominant and displayed significant distaste for civic

criticism. Superficial evidence (such as the proliferation of radio talk shows that openly

criticise errant officials) suggests that the space for social accountability has expanded inKenya. But civic activists point out the dampening effect of the enormous, and often

unchecked, executive powers available to the Kenyan government over NGOs today.

CLARION (Centre for Law and Research International) is an independent Kenyan NGO

that researches rule of law and corruption. It plays a significant role in mobilising and

enabling community stakeholders to hold local authorities accountable to their legal

obligations. In 1996, it produced a study called The Anatomy of Corruption in Kenya,

whereupon it was deregistered from the NGO Board. While the political climate has

changed considerably since then, the legal environment has not. Kenyas executive

retains the power to intimidate NGOs, just as it did under Daniel Arap Moi. NGOsaside, Kenya is not commonly associated as welcoming critical engagement from the

press and media. A recent book by respected author Michela Wrong, Its Our Turn to Eat:

The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-blower, reveals widespread corruption and intimidation in

Kenya. When first published in 2009, the author complained about the reluctance of

Kenyan bookstores to stock the book.25

In Kenya, particularly in rural areas, poverty is a constant threat and delivery of social

services often tops the agenda for civic engagement. Social accountability and citizen

engagement is inextricably linked to service delivery. While the formal economy grows

steadily, Kenyans living in semi-arid regions like West Pokot and Turkana complain of

being systematically excluded from services and say they are watching their

communities slide deeper into poverty. For large areas, quality-of-life indicators are not

dissimilar to those of significantly poorer neighbours, South Sudan and Ethiopia26.

Despite a vibrant civil society, the prevalence of democratic institutions and rapid,

visible accumulation of wealth in recent years, quality of life has deteriorated for much of

the population. Because MDG data aggregates indicators nationally, it often does a poor

job of emphasising the disparities in service delivery and opportunities.

The proliferation of civil society organisations, large scale funding by international

development partners and the appearance of a functioning democracy are clearly not

enough to ensure accountability and citizen engagement to improve service delivery.

25 Stray Questions for Michela Wrong, New York Times, 17 July 2009.26 Although the latest data indicates service delivery has improved in Kenya in the last fewyears, by comparison, the 2009 CIA World Fact Book put the Kenyan Government Budget at over

US$8 billion for a population of 39 million compared to the Ethiopian Government Budget at less

than US$5 billion for 85 million. Kenya Government revenue per capita is four times Ethiopias.


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Funding: The Double Edged Sword

Social accountability depends on accountability actors holding authorities and

representatives accountable. Civil society, however, is also a valuable actor in buildingconsensus. In promoting good governance, civil society creates the structure for

consultation and often the agenda in engaging decision makers. However, when funding

becomes an incentive to partner with rather than hold government to account, civil

society often has to choose between its funding and its mandate. It is often easier to

change the mandate.

In Kenya financial incentives to partner with government are enormous. While The

Constitution (Bomas draft) enables citizen accountability, freedom of trade, occupation

and professional freedom to form, join or participate in trade unions 27 , it does not do

much to incentivize greater accountability and citizen engagement while largelyignoring the inherent economic and social disincentives in place.

Kenyas NGO Act and the NGO Coordination Regulations of 1992 allow them to apply

to the minister of finance for exemptions from tax and duty on certain imports. Similar

provisions apply to societies. In order to access this exemption civil society must partner

with a line ministry, and be recommended by the particular ministry before an

applications is considered.

Another problem is that freedoms granted in the Constitution can be circumscribed.

Kenyas

NGO board can refuse registration if the NGOs activities are deemed to not be in the

national interest. Registration certificates must be renewed every five years, and

renewal is conditional on the NGO not breaching any regulations. Without registration it

is difficult for NGOs to receive the small amounts of local funding; without registration

it is almost impossible to receive grants from international development partners.

The combination of incentives to work with elites combined with disincentives that

invariably threaten NGO funding (including from international development partners)

undermine the willingness of NGOs to meaningfully support civic engagement and call

for greater accountability.

How Funding enables Citizen Engagement and Accountability

27 Article 57 and 59 of the Bomas draft, Government of Kenya.


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The European Union funded Community Development Trust Fund (CDTF) has been

operating in Kenya since 1996 and uses an innovative method to promote citizen

engagement and accountability. The fund invites local communities to suggest proposals

and work with district officials to cost them. Then it sends its own staff into the field to

verify the estimates in the marketplace with the same community representatives. CDTF

claims that through rationalising requested supplies and sourcing market related quotes,it reduces the original budget by 60-80%. The grant is then given to the community

directly and technical assistance is provided to ensure the project is managed effectively.

Monitors and researchers have commended the process for contributing to local

accountability.

However, this practice is not commonly repeated. One would thing that after fifteen

years of CDTF successfully demonstrating the value of this approach in improving

transparency, accountability and service delivery it would be commonly replicated in

Kenya and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike in more developed countries the

vast majority of NGO financing in sub-Saharan Africa comes from external donors. InKenya, external donor funding constitutes almost 90% of funding to NGOs.

NGO FUNDING IN KENYA

Source Amount in KES % of funding

External donors 17,893,629,000 88.4

Own sources 1,197,656,000 5.9

Private 819,537,000 4.0

Individuals 331,336,423 1.6

Total 20,242,159,000 100.0

Source: Kanyinga, K. et al, 2007. The Non-Profit Sector in Kenya, University of Nairobi, Aga Khan

Development Network

In terms of service delivery, the bulk of services in Kenya are provided by NGOs and

CSOs that often operate in parallel to local structures. In countries like South Sudan

NGO service delivery outsizes the government to such an extent that its transfer to

government oversight is a national development goal28.

International Development Partners and Commitments to Accountability

In the sections above, I have shown that citizen engagement in sub-Saharan Africa isthreatened by little protection from retaliation and potential coercion by elites. I have

posited that the potentially punitive environment has contributed to the belief that

democratic processes are best held to task by protected elites. The examples of

Mozambique and Malawi were invoked to demonstrate that donors and access to

28 South Sudan Development Plan 2011:2013


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reliable sources of financing play an essential role in building accountability

mechanisms at the state/institutional level. I then focus on cases in Kenya by using the

examples of Muslims for Human Rights and the Community Development Trust Fund

to demonstrate how citizen engagement in Kenya results in measurable improvements

to service delivery. I also have included data to demonstrate the disproportionate and

potentially influential role donor funding plays in what civil society can do in sub-Saharan Africa and pointed out the important role civil society plays in service delivery

(in some cases outsizing service delivery by the government). Invoking these examples

in this order was intended to ask the question:

Given that, international development partners are committed to citizen engagement and

accountability in service delivery and that donor financed service delivery is such a large

proportion of overall delivery in sub-Saharan Africa how could development partners better

enable citizen engagement and accountability through their grant making?

Before answering this question, it is important to get to task with the notion that civilsociety is itself accountable to citizens in service delivery. Civil society organisations are

not necessarily beyond criticism: they are routinely criticised as being even less

transparent than governments. This claim does carry water because much of the funding

to civil society organisations is channelled through international NGOs that have no

obligation to share their budgeting and financial reports with citizens. Because NGOs

are controlled by headquarters based in capitals or overseas, their physical distanced

from community representatives makes it difficult to call them to account. NGO leaders

are not elected nor are they under the jurisdiction of national ombudsmen offices. In

effect, communities have little leverage in demanding accountability from NGOs who

receive funding that is granted in the name of helping the very communities that

struggle to demand accountability. Donors themselves are not answerable to African

taxpayers; donors and international development partners are accountable to their

headquarters and are themselves not open to citizen engagement and accountability29. In

countries like South African, where aid is 2% of public expenditure, international

development partners could successfully argue that their role in service delivery is

negligible. However, in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa international development

partners finance large portions of service delivery and in some cases outsize government

expenditure. In 200830 for example, donors funded a fifth of public expenditure in Kenya,

over a third in Ghana, almost half in Uganda, three fifths in Ethiopia and almost two thirds in

Malawi. In Malawi, in 2008, for every dollar of government budget, donors had USD

1.67.

29 Multilateral institutions like the United Nations claim they are more accountable as partner countries are

represented on their boards; however, impunity of UN officials from accountability is well documented.

Despite UN efforts to ensure better transparency and accountability, analysts like Rasna Warah in the New

African do not shy away from articles like Lords of ImpunityWhy whistleblowing at the UN is a waste of time .

UK, London: IC Publications, New African, Issue 51130 Financial Times www.ft.com, Interactive Graph:Africas Dependence on Aid


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Where Aid is a Disincentive to Organisations Demanding Greater Accountability

While development partners are committed to accountability and civic engagement

many civil society representatives complain that donors do not support controversial orcritical organizations. It is inconceivable that corruption will be successfully combatted

without critical engagement; the fact that this typically means challenging elites also

means that anti-corruption measures are likely to be controversial. It is much of an open

secret in the donor community that international development partners are reluctant to

admit that their relationship with beneficiary governments is more important than

support to democratic actors and specifically those demanding greater accountability.

Donor funding does not typically promote the critical engagement essential to building

social accountability. To comply with contractual obligations and reduce the risk of

incurring ineligible expenditure, CSOs and NGOs are under significant pressure to

conform their organisational structure and ethos to the strictures implied in their grantagreements.

A study covering transaction costs on non-profit recipients of donor funds31, found that,

with the notable exception of DANIDA, donors largely do not pay for core

organizational costs. Uncovered core costs often include:

Resource mobilisation and project design (often consuming 50-60% of the workinghours of key staff);

Administrative overheads, which average about 10% of running costs of large CSOsand NGOs, and often more for smaller organisations;

So-called irregular costs like bribes or facilitation fees (widespread, but not easy toquantify);

Project closing costs. Management can spend up to two days a month responding toqueries about closed projects; and

Ineligible expenditure typically resulting from inflexible or inappropriate donorprocedures (estimated at about 5% of procurement budgets).

These costs have to be recouped elsewhere. Donors do not typically allow grant

recipients to accrue surpluses that might offset unexpected losses. Many NGOs routinely

reallocate costs to inappropriate budget lines or resort to creative reporting, putting

their organizations at risk financially and in terms of professional reputation. Because

national NGO accounts can be scrutinized by government authorities and publicofficials, receiving a grant that inherently means a loss is a significant disincentive to

accountability as it may invoke retaliation that could have financial consequences. This

31 DANIDA Kenya (2009) Public and Non-public Provision of Services: Accountability, Efficiency and Support to

Nation Building and Democratic Decentralisation. Kenya, Nairobi: Danida.


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means that the procedural mechanisms that many donors use to grant monies to NGOs

often undermine the same NGOs capacity to promote accountability.

Donors logical framework approach and comparable management techniques such

as the strategic framework approach and objectives-oriented project planning have

largely become industry standards in designing development assistance programmes32.These approaches emphasise the need for problems to be clearly defined and progress to

be measurable. Des Gasper of the Netherlands Institute for Social Studies identified

three limitations in this approach. The first is that, while logical frameworks are

intended to allow flexibility, they tend to be implemented inflexibly. Once in place, the

framework is rarely amended. The second problem is that poorly researched

frameworks do not always correspond to needs on the ground. Finally, logical

frameworks are often devoid of logic because they have been manipulated to fit existing

actions.

Donors and implementation agencies view the logical framework differently. NGOs andCSOs perceive it as a donor-driven bureaucratic burden and rarely research it

thoroughly. Donors, on the other hand, see it as the foundation of their contractual and

legal relationship with the beneficiary and the basis for giving the grant. They are

reluctant to make later changes and even when they are willing, the process of change

is long and burdensome.

Finally, CSOs and NGOs often find themselves in a position where donors encourage

them not to be accountable to their own beneficiaries. Donors need proposals before

they make grants. Often, proposals have already been approved or are in the process

of being approved before local consultation can takes place. Many CSOs and NGOs

resort to seeking tacit community approval after the grant has effectively been awarded.

Because donor procedures are widely perceived as being inflexible, when communities

ask for the approach to be adjusted, many grant makers resist.

In sum, the lack of resources to design projects carefully and the reluctance to change

them after a grant is awarded are effective disincentives to CSOs and NGOs being

accountable to their beneficiaries. It is no wonder, then, that disenchanted development

activists question whether CSOs are effective civil society actors or merely

protagonists33.

On a policy level, it is becoming less clear whether donors are as committed to socialaccountability. The European Union is one of the largest international donors but the

32Gasper, D. (1999) Problems in the Logical Framework Approach and challenges for Project Cycle Management,

Brussels, Belgium: The Courier, no 173 and Fitz-Gerald, A. M. and Neal, D. J., 2003.A Strategic Management

Framework for Improved Aid Delivery, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom: Cranfield University 33European Commission (2000) Evaluation of NGO co-financing Budget Line (www.europa.ec.eu).


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majority of itsgrant funding to NGOs at country level is now to non-state actors (NSA)

that puts NGOs and CSOs in direct competition with chambers of commerce,

professional associations and labour unions. EU Support to NSAs34 reveals an emphasis

not on supporting a critical civil society demanding social accountability, but rather on

encouraging partnership between NSAs and government.

Recent structural trends in how donor resources are managed also appear to undermine

the sort of independent critical society35 that engages citizens and promotes

accountability in combatting corruption. The Southern Africa Trust36 points out that,

donors are more likely to fund cost effective, malleable service delivery over critical

accountability organisations. There is a growing divide between poorly resourced

African organizations and well-resourced international NGOs speaking on behalf of

African counterparts.

African accountability/civil society organisations are comparatively rare and when

existing tend to be poorly resourced and vulnerable to intimidation. Domesticaccountability organisations are essential to democratic governance and poverty

alleviation because they play a strong advocacy and watchdog role holding decision

makers accountable. When poorly resourced they have little access to high level decision

makers; this, in turn, creates incentives for donors to support international organisations

to promote domestic accountability.

Trends in Aid: Aid Effectiveness as a Threat to Citizen Engagement and

Accountability

To meet their Paris Declaration commitments to improving government ownership and

better aligning to national development policies, donors are increasingly decentralising

decision making to country level. Aid effectiveness is changing the rules and conditions

determining how aid is delivered. While the purpose of aid is vigorously debated37, the

aid effectiveness agenda is dominated by rhetoric that urges Western donors can

improve access to and relationships with developing countries. The primary goal is

34See http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/where/worldwide/civil-society/index_en.htm, European Commission

Guide on Support to Non-State Actors and NSA LA Strategy Paper 2007-2012.35 ANSA/IDASA 2010 Social Accountability in Africa, Chapter 12 and DANIDA Kenya (2009), Study of Public

and Non-Public Delivery of Services: Accountability, Efficiency and Support to Nation Building and Democratic

Decentralisation.36 Southern Africa Trust 2007Aid Effectiveness:Trends and Impacts of Shifting Financial Flows to Civil Society

Organisations in Southern Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa37 Weiss, J (2008) The Aid Paradigm for Poverty Reduction: Does it Make Sense? in Development Policy Review,

2008 26 (4): 407:426 or Freund, B (2010) Development Dilemmas in Post-Apartheid South Africa, South Africa,

Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal.


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improving relationships with government. Aid effectiveness proposes to do this by building

government capacity regardless the quality of the democracy or space for civil society.

In 2005, donors and governments signed the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. The

Paris Declaration priorities are giving government greater ownership of donor resources,

decreasing dissenting and alternative voices by improving harmonisation and increasingalignment with government policy and strategy. The first three of the five38 Paris

Declaration principles are already being implemented. Ownership is fundamentally

about measuring donor value on government opinions; alignment means changing the

debate to that of the governments national development strategy and harmonisation is

fundamentally a disciplinary tool by which minority or dissenting donors are

discouraged from fragmenting the message.

A greater share of donor resources is granted directly to government by way of budget

support. Donors improve harmonisation through national coordination structures and

are increasingly setting their priorities on those of the government (i.e. aligning responsestrategies and to national development plans).

When governments rely mainly on tax revenue from elites and the private sector, there

is a strong incentive for them to prioritise the needs of the rich over that of the wider

population. Many African governments now raise as much money from donors as they

do from revenue collection39. This further dilutes the incentive for governments to be

directly accountable to the poor. It is important to remember that despite commitments

to the contrary, Western donors are even less accountable to Africas poor than African

governments are. As such, increasing aid volumes with a greater commitment to

funding through government could prove a significant threat to accountability in Africa.

"We should not underestimate the degree to which a whole set of

relationships that Britain had in its old colonial days that went sour have

been revitalised and given new life as a result of the country's passionate

commitment to development. It has given us a huge position in the

worldPeople in the west now understand one of the problems we have

had - which is why I am such a huge believer in the issue of better

governance - that whilst it might be good to spend 10m on a small scale

agricultural project, you might be better spending that money reforming an

agriculture ministry."

38 The Paris Declaration includes commitments to mutual accountability and managing for results both of

which are not being implemented at the same speed as those relating to government ownership.39 This accountability relationship is often worsened by governments relying on narrow revenue sources,

e.g. from resource extraction, taxing high value imports or concessions.


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Tony Blair,

June 201040

Tony Blair41 sees the success of aid in improving a relationship gone sour. Repairing this

relationship gives the UK a huge position in the world; people in the west now

understand that aid money might be better spent reforming a ministry rather than

helping small scale farmers. The dominant themes in aid effectiveness are not poverty

alleviation, human rights or democratisation; they are:

Using aid to improve dialogue with government42, Improving donor participation in government policy setting, Convincing African governments to use Western development models43.

Western donors are frustrated that despite being the largest donors to Africa for

decades, few countries appear to openly align themselves with Western interests. For

European donors, the relationship is more aggravated by uncomfortable reminders and

remnants of colonialism.

Peter Wanyoni writes in Kenyas Daily Nation, for example44 whereas the murderous

dictatorships of the Middle East never receive lectures about democracy or

corruption.these diatribes remain the platform on which Western engagement with

Africa is always based. Lets face it: the West owns us and knows it only too well. On

the question of mutual accountability AFRODADs Charles Mutasa argued in 2008 that

donors continue to use unfair, undemocratic and inappropriate policy conditionality, in

a way that skews recipient accountability away from the citizens of poor countries.

[Government and civic groups in the South]at long last [recognise] the critical and

indeed, legitimate role played by the other in achieving consistent, sustainable long termdevelopment 45. Such sentiments incentivise donors to prioritise improving their image

over supporting critical civil society.

40 Wintour, P and Elliot, L (2010) Tony Blair Urges Tough Love Approach to Aid The Guardian, Issue 8 June

201041 Thanks are due to Nancy Dubosse (2010) for emphasising the importance of Tony Blairs comments in

understanding aid trends in sub-Saharan Africa.

42 Mail and Guardian (July 1 2010), South Africa: Johannesburg, In an evaluation of donor performance in

Mozambique in May, the government attacked donors by claiming that discussions "often degenerated into

mutual accusations" and that relations between the government and donors had "ceased to be a

partnership".43 Development models includes agreeing western concepts on rules of trade, intellectual property rights,

movement of capital, who defines a terrorist or a freedom fighter, etc.44 Wanyoni, P (June 14, 2010: 13) Editorial Opinion, Daily Nation, Kenya: Nairobi45 Mutasa, C (2008, September 4),Africa: Aid Effectiveness - The Question of Mutual Accountability,

www.allAfrica.com


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The risks these trends pose to accountability are not well voiced. In the parallel session

at Accra46 , civil society did not call for greater accountability, funding or access to

accountability actors. Civil society rather concluded that:

Development effectiveness means recognizing that the framework

must be based on local, participatory and democratic ownership,without policy conditionalities, in order to move from a focus on

managing for development results to one of social justice.47

OECD

2009

Donors are systematically implementing their commitments to government ownership,

alignment and harmonisation with insufficient attention to the impact it may have on

accountability and citizen engagement. The potential threat this places on better citizen

engagement and accountability in service delivery has been poorly voiced. In order notto better promote accountability, aid effectiveness needs to promote:

Safe spaces for citizen engagement and accountability, Support to building stronger African NGOs that are independently resourced speak

on behalf of Africans,

Incorporate citizen engagement and accountability mechanisms in newprogramming,

Civil society access and participation in high level decision making and particularlyin the national aid architecture.

46 The Accra meeting on Aid Effectiveness in 2008 was a follow up to the Paris meeting. The Accra meeting

resulted in the Accra Agenda for Action (for aid effectiveness).47 OECD: Civil Society Voices for Better Aids 2009 reportAn Assessment of the Accra Agenda for Action from a

civil society perspective


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Conclusion

In sub-Saharan Africa, not enough attention is paid to creating an enabling environment

for citizen engagement and accountability in combating corruption and improving

service delivery. Policy makers must best focus on systemic challenges because many ofthe available accountability and over-sight mechanisms are either corrupted or

inoperable. This necessarily means recognising how coercion and pressure affect civil

society. The disproportionate power of large public sector institutions (such as

development partners and governments) means civil society and public protection

mechanisms can benefit from partnering with them. However, they are also threatened

by potential retaliation and or coercion in partnering with or receiving grants from

public sector institutions. The twin combination of a potential benefit from well-meaning

decision makers and the implied threat of coercion create incentives that transform civil

society and public protection mechanisms too easily into a form that is palatable to

decision makers. This invariably means a form where critical engagement andaccountability is rarely applied where it is most needed.

African governments, donors and civil society should establish independent grant

makers. The case studies cited in this chapter demonstrate that without secure and

independent funding accountability actors in both the public and private sector have

significant disincentives to combatting corruption and challenging elites. The case

studies also demonstrate that funding itself is not sufficient; the nature of funding and

the procedures used are only successful if they are appropriate to promoting

engagement and accountability. In this regard, international development partners need

to recognise the role they play in strengthening and/or undermining accountability. This

is particularly important when considering the disproportionate size of donor financing

of public expenditure in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, it is essential that

governments and development partners balance their mutual interests to strengthen

their relationship with their commitments to greater transparency, citizen engagement

and accountability.

Support legislative change, witness protection and legal support for whistle-blowers:

There is far too little protection for whistle-blowers in sub-Saharan Africa. Security

forces are too often beholden to elites to secure the safety of whistle-blowers. Whistle-

blowers are essential to better service delivery, avoiding leakages and tempering the call

to redirect services in the interest of elites. Participatory budgeting and othermechanisms to build transparency, while effective in the short term, do not appear to

have resulted in meaningful accountability; this is largely because they are implemented

in parallel to central decision-making and partly because they are sporadic and often

only used after financing decisions have already been made. Public hearings, improving

community transparency and access to information offer tangible results in sub-Saharan

Africa. However, there is too little evidence to suggest they have been successful in


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ensuring accountability and responsiveness from decision makers. To foster citizen

engagement and accountability, practitioners need to foster an enabling environment

while supporting greater incentives and protection against retaliation.

Government and civil society need to strengthen their partnership: African civil society

and civil servants have a wealth of resources and are able to play a larger role inimproving service delivery. Civil society has depth and is able to partner with

communities in a way that agencies and government do not. African civil society

successes have garnered organizations with considerable technical skills and

institutional capacity to strengthen citizen engagement accountability. At the same time,

African governments should not be overlooked; governments have experienced and

skilled civil servants that if granted protection and afforded incentives will play a

dramatic role in improving cost effectiveness and appropriateness of service delivery.

Governments should hold Donors and Development Partners need to be More

Accountable: Development partners have not sufficiently come to terms with the factthat combatting corruption through citizen engagement and accountability is about

checking the power of elites. Elites rarely relinquish power gracefully or gently. Unless

space and support is made available for citizens to play an agonistic role traction is

unlikely. This means that development partners, themselves, need to invite dissent and

critical engagement. What is of utmost importance is that development partners open

their own decision making structures to scrutiny. If current trends towards closed-door

decision making within national aid architectures continue, it is likely that development

partners will contribute to increasingly opaque public decision making that

fundamentally resists accountability and reform. Furthermore, international

development partners need to recognise that their desire to maintain a diplomatic

relationship with partner governments should not displace their support of

controversial and critical accountability actors.

As an immediate first step, development partners should delegate the task of awarding

grants to independent grant-makers tasked with growing strong and critical accountability

organisations. Unlike institutional actors and development partners that prioritise good

relationships with elites, independent grant-makers should be primarily answerable to

citizens and need a vested interest in establishing strong and independent institutions

that demand accountability and combat corruption. A well-functioning independent

grant maker could conceivably reinforce budgets of key government institutions such as

the public protector, ombudsmen or witness protection programmes or even financemuch needed legal services. Practically this means a fund independent of donor and

government influence with an elected and rotating board of accountability actors. Grants

should be structured in such a way that civil society recipients are answerable on

content to excluded beneficiaries and only on financial management to donors.

Independent grant-makers should receive funding to the extent they demonstrate

tangible improvements in citizen engagement, accountability and combating corruption.


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Independent grant-makers have been used by donors before. The European Union

already has a number of funds including the European Initiative for Democratisation

and Human Rights (EIDHR) that are designed to make grants independently of national

political influence. International environment, health and research funds use similar

structures responding to needs identified by sector experts rather than institutionalrepresentatives. In apartheid South Africa, donors used independent grant-makers such

as Diakonia, the Transitional National Development Trust and Kagiso Trust to bypass

government influence. If donors are to promote accountability in Africa, they need to

make grants free of influence; this means the independence to create incentives for

citizens to better demand accountability.

Support Regional/Peer Benchmarking Mechanisms: Although not covered in this paper,

the success of peer based mechanisms such as the Africa Peer Review Mechanism and

Mo Ibrahim Index must not be overlooked. When there is an absence of strong local

accountability organizations it is too easy for African elites to dismiss criticisms ongovernance and corruption as being a Western bias. African owned mechanisms

successfully reframe the problem as an African one. Much can still be done in

strengthening such initiatives and promoting a greater regional role in combating

corruption.

African Civil Society Must Protect its Own: As a complementary step, CSOs need to

advocate for legislative and judicial reform to afford their institutions greater protection.

CSOs should consult stakeholders, like-minded public bodies and previously excluded

actors to develop action plans that specifically strengthen citizen engagement and

accountability in service delivery. Citizen engagement should not be isolated or

restricted to design and evaluation. Citizen engagement and accountability is a means of

monitoring risk and improving performance of service delivery; as such it needs to be

incorporated as a management tool. Development partners need to be called to task and the

national aid architectures must be opened to representative participation and scrutiny.

Accountability, citizen engagement and anti-corruption to improve service delivery

needs to be incorporated in monitoring aid effectiveness and mutual accountability.

Finally, it is important to speak to those in the audience that may feel uncomfortable

with this critical engagement with decision makers because they believe that decision

makers that have good intentions should be treated more gently. Donors, government

and civil society all claim to be motivated by the goal of contributing to the commongood; it is this moral imperative that allows them the intellectual space to make

decisions about service delivery that influence community power relationships and who

gets to benefit. While proffered intentions may be good, the impact of their (our)

actions have real life and death consequences. Deciding to invest in innovative

solutions rather than to simply increase supply of life-saving drugs, for example, is a

life and death decision. Insisting that an anti-corruption organization is not eligible


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funds unless it finds its own contribution has other real world consequences.

Accountability is recognising that decision makers make mistakes and that these

mistakes can harm and/or under-mine the very beneficiaries being helped. Combating

corruption means recognising that these same decisions makers (donors, government

and civil society) are also tempted to act in their own interests whether due to financial

incentives or the simple notion that they know better. Accountability and anti-corruptionmeasures actually make matters worse when they are not universally applied. If African

governments are held to higher standards than donors or civil society it only enables

donors and civil society more space to divert resources. Elites will target those

institutions easiest to manipulate. Accordingly, the conclusion of this chapter is that if

corruption is to be combatted in better delivery of the MDGs in sub-Saharan Africa,

accountability and anti-corruption measures must apply to all decision makers equally.


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Citizen Engagement in sub-Saharan Africa - Implications for Corruption and Accountability

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