VOLUME 43 NUMBER 1 SJPG JUNE 2020 Dynamics of Social Accountability at Local Government in Nepal Hari Bhakta Shahi Abstract Social accountability requires collective eforts of the service providers and service receivers in which citizens and/or civil society organizations engage to bring state ofcials or service providers to be accountable. Here, the binding mechanism could be social audit and citizen charter which promote efectiveness of social accountability. Tis article assesses how these mechanisms – social audit and citizen’s charter are helpful in establishing and maintaining social accountability at the local level in Nepal. Te fndings show the citizens’ confusion regarding the implementation of such mechanisms for promoting social accountability at the local level. Despite the fact that accountability is essential to strengthen democracy, it takes time to bring it in practice. Nepal’s initiation to strengthen the local government through democratic exercise would be helpful with citizens’ participation in the accountability process. Keywords: Social Accountability, Social Audit, Citizen Charter, Citizens’ Participation, Local Government, Nepal 1. Background Accountability is the obligation of power-holders to take responsibility for their actions. It lies at the heart of both democratic, rights-based governance and equitable human development. A democratic and inclusive society is based on a social contract between a responsive and accountable state and responsible and active citizens, in which the interests of the people particularly marginals are taken into account. Such contracts “have to be constructed over time, through mutual interactions between states and citizens” (Kabeer, 2010). ‘Social accountability’ refers to a form of civic engagement that builds accountability through the collective eforts of citizens and civil society organizations to hold South Asian Journal of Policy and Governance 41 public ofcials, service providers and governments to account for their obligations with responsive eforts (Houtzager and Joshi, 2008). With the strengthened civic engagement and amplifed ‘citizen voice’, social accountability initiatives aim to increase the transparency of governance in many arenas, ranging from local service delivery to national processes of policy formulation. In social accountability initiatives, information is provided to citizens about their rights and legal and institutional procedures. Building awareness of these issues is ofen a frst step to fostering active and efective citizenship and encouraging citizens to engage (Gaventa and Barrett, 2010). Te social accountability agenda has developed against a background of broader democratization and decentralization trends and new mechanisms and instruments have been developed and refned in response to the broader changes. Te new social accountability mechanisms include participatory budgeting, public expenditure tracking, gender budgeting, citizen juries and other forms of public hearings, participatory monitoring of donor commitments to advance the MDGs and reporting to international treaty-monitoring bodies. It is important to point out that many of the more recent initiatives have not aimed at increasing efciency but at claiming rights. Despite the high level of interest in social accountability initiatives, there is no consensus on a common defnition of what it is. In fact, some might characterize it as a set of practices in search of a defnition. Some scholars take a very wide defnition that encompasses almost all citizen-engagement activity, particularly including both participation in deliberative decision-making and participation in accountability (Malena et al., 2004; Arroyo, 2005). Others take a bit narrow defnition, focusing on monitoring the use of public resources and related accountability demands, such as “the on-going and collective efort to hold public ofcials to account for the provision of public goods which are existing state obligations” (Joshi, 2008; Houtzager and Joshi, 2008). Te emphasis then is more on collective eforts at accountability demands as rights. Te work of the Afliated Network for Social Accountability, East Asia and the Pacifc, captures this element of rights by noting, “the goal of social accountability action brings us back to the vision of a good society—meeting people’s basic needs through improved public service delivery, building a caring community that enhances people’s welfare and promoting equality and justice by strengthening people’s rights” (ANSA-EAP, 2010). With regard to the expected outcomes of social accountability, three types of outcomes are usually cited. Te broadest set of claims relates to citizen empowerment of the poor people, including increased awareness of rights and the potential construction of citizenship through engagement in civic life. Another set claims social accountability would lead 42 Dynamics of Social Accountability to increased responsiveness and subsequently improved public services, and the third one claims in relation to service delivery which initiates improved governance and particularly reduced corruption. Here, it is quite important to point out that while anti-corruption and social accountability initiatives overlap, they are not the same—there are many anti-corruption accountability measures that do not involve social accountability mechanisms, and many social accountability eforts may not address corruption. Nepal’s political landscape has changed rapidly over the last ffy years, from the unitary Panchayat system in the early 1960s to multiparty democratic rule under a constitutional monarchy in 1990 and again to a democratic federal republic system since 2007. One of the spirits of the new constitution is to address issues related to public sector governance and public service delivery. To maintain social accountability, mechanism is devised to bring both elected representatives and non-elected public servants to deliver services to the citizens. 2. Statement of the Problem Public service delivery is afected both due to inadequacy of funds and also the lack of institutional efectiveness in the interaction of state, private and social sectors in resource mobilization for service provision. Looking into the existing institutional constraints, the government has initiated to improve weak institutional capacity of the development administration, service delivery institutions, and monitoring entities to improve poor service delivery making it simple, easy, and transparent (MoF 2013:4; NPC 2013:8). For promoting social accountability, a number of legal measures has been enacted in Nepal by the government for service providers and service receivers. At present, there are 753 local governments and 77 District Coordination Committees at the lower level of the government. Tere is a common tendency that the citizens still have some hesitation to claim the services from the public organization as their right. However, these bodies should follow the citizen’s trust as mechanism of service delivery and initiate citizens’ participation in social audit which can scrutinize the functions of the public ofcials. To implement accountability mechanism, citizens’ active participation in the development and service delivery mechanism is highly essential. However, the appropriateness of the mechanisms for implementable conditions for accountability have not been sufciently explored in the literature. In this context, it is pertinent to discuss how social audit and citizen’s charter as accountability mechanisms are helpful to maintain social accountability at the local level in Nepal. Some questions related with this research are as follows: t %PFTHPWFSONFOUQFSGPSNBODFNBUUFSUPFOIBODFTPDJBMBDDPVOUBCJMJUZBU the local level? South Asian Journal of Policy and Governance 43 t "SFNBMFBOEGFNBMFQFSDFQUJPOTEJČFSFOUGPSTPDJBMBDDPVOUBCJMJUZBUUIF local level? t 8IBUGBDUPSTDPOUSJCVUFUPJNQMFNFOUTPDJBMBDDPVOUBCJMJUZNFDIBOJTNBU the local level? 3. Objectives of the Study Te main objective of this study is to measure the social accountability status in the local government of Nepal from a diferent perspective, however, the specifc objectives are as follows: t 5P JEFOUJGZ UIF MFWFM PG TPDJBM BDDPVOUBCJMJUZ QSBDUJDFE CZ UIF MPDBM government in Nepal. t 5PFYBNJOFUIFSPMFPGEJČFSFOUGBDUPSTBČFDUJOHUIFNBJOUFOBODFPGTPDJBM accountability in the local Government of Nepal. t 5PJEFOUJUZUIFSFMBUJPOTIJQTCFUXFFOTPDJBMBDDPVOUBCJMJUZBOEQFSGPSNBODF in the local Government of Nepal. 4. Conceptualizing Social Accountability Social accountability (SA) represents a specifc form of more general accountability. As Bovens (2007) noted, in the contemporary political and scholarly discourse ‘accountability’ ofen serves as a conceptual umbrella that covers various distinct concepts, such as transparency, equity, democracy, efciency, responsiveness, responsibility and integrity which may also be used interchangeably with ‘good governance’. Bovens (2007: 450) describes accountability as ‘the obligation to explain and justify conduct’ and defnes it as ‘a relationship between an actor and a forum, in which the actor has an obligation to explain and to justify his or her conduct, the forum can pose questions and pass judgment, and the actor may face consequences’. Te actor can be either an individual or an organization, institution or agency; the accountability forum can be a specifc person or the society, the relationships can have the principal agent relation, while obligations can be both formal or informal (Bovens, 2007: 451).