IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v8y2020i4p395-406.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Doing Civil Society-Driven Social Accountability in a Disaster Context: Evidence from Post-Earthquake Nepal

Author

Listed:
  • Nimesh Dhungana

    (Department of Methodology, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK / Department of International Development, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK)

Abstract

While accountability has gained significant traction within the contemporary discourse on disaster governance, what it means and takes to be ‘doing accountability’ in promoting democratic governance of disasters remain scantly understood. Using the concept of social accountability and drawing on an ethnographic case study of a civil society-led accountability campaign in post-earthquake Nepal (the Mobile Citizen Help Desk, or MCHD), this article shows how MCHD sought to amplify local voices regarding failures in aid delivery and expanded opportunities for dialogue between disaster-affected communities and local powerholders. It highlights the potential of such initiative in safeguarding and promoting the rights of disaster-affected communities, while also helping overcome the post-disaster environment of mistrust, unfounded allegations and power inequalities. The article also draws attention to the challenges facing such an initiative. It shows that the effectiveness of such efforts in translating citizens’ voices into state response was undermined by: (i) its incorporation into a donor-driven humanitarian accountability initiative, in which generating and reporting feedback to donors proved more pressing than amplifying citizen voice; and (ii) unclear structures of governance at the local level of service delivery, which impeded the civil society actors’ aim to engage with ‘the right authority.’ The article draws attention to the political potential of social accountability in a post-disaster context, while also raising caution that such activism is unlikely to succeed in holding powerholders to account in the absence of supportive national bureaucratic and international aid structures.

Suggested Citation

  • Nimesh Dhungana, 2020. "Doing Civil Society-Driven Social Accountability in a Disaster Context: Evidence from Post-Earthquake Nepal," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(4), pages 395-406.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v:8:y:2020:i:4:p:395-406
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/3154
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fox, Jonathan A, 2007. "The uncertain relationship between transparency and accountability," Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, Working Paper Series qt8c25c3z4, Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Santa Cruz.
    2. Martina Björkman & Jakob Svensson, 2009. "Power to the People: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment on Community-Based Monitoring in Uganda," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 735-769.
    3. Tsai, Lily L., 2007. "Solidary Groups, Informal Accountability, and Local Public Goods Provision in Rural China," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(2), pages 355-372, May.
    4. Shukla, Anuprita & Teedon, Paul & Cornish, Flora, 2016. "Empty rituals? A qualitative study of users’ experience of monitoring & evaluation systems in HIV interventions in western India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 7-15.
    5. Enrique Peruzzotti & Catalina Smulovitz, 2002. "Held to Account: Experiences of Social Accountability in Latin America," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 209-230.
    6. John Gaventa & Rosemary McGee, 2013. "The Impact of Transparency and Accountability Initiatives," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 31, pages 3-28, July.
    7. Björn-Sören Gigler & Savita Bailur, 2014. "Closing the Feedback Loop : Can Technology Bridge the Accountability Gap?," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 18408, December.
    8. Fox, Jonathan A., 2015. "Social Accountability: What Does the Evidence Really Say?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 346-361.
    9. Anuradha Joshi, 2014. "Reading the Local Context: A Causal Chain Approach to Social Accountability," IDS Bulletin, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(5), pages 23-35, September.
    10. Kishor Sharma, 2012. "Politics and Governance in Nepal," Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 57-69, June.
    11. De Juan, Alexander & Pierskalla, Jan & Schwarz, Elisa, 2020. "Natural disasters, aid distribution, and social conflict – Micro-level evidence from the 2015 earthquake in Nepal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    12. Biradavolu, Monica R. & Blankenship, Kim M. & George, Annie & Dhungana, Nimesh, 2015. "Unintended Consequences of Community-Based Monitoring Systems: Lessons from an HIV Prevention Intervention for Sex Workers in South India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 1-10.
    13. Badru Bukenya, 2016. "From Social Accountability to a New Social Contract? The Role of NGOs in Protecting and Empowering PLHIV in Uganda," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(8), pages 1162-1176, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dorothea Hilhorst & Kees Boersma & Emmanuel Raju, 2020. "Research on Politics of Disaster Risk Governance: Where Are We Headed?," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(4), pages 214-219.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Igor Francetic & Günther Fink & Fabrizio Tediosi, 2021. "Impact of social accountability monitoring on health facility performance: Evidence from Tanzania," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(4), pages 766-785, April.
    2. Kuppens, Miet, 2016. "Exploring the social accountability concept: a literature review," IOB Working Papers 2016.06, Universiteit Antwerpen, Institute of Development Policy (IOB).
    3. Fox, Jonathan A., 2015. "Social Accountability: What Does the Evidence Really Say?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 346-361.
    4. Joshi, Anuradha, 2017. "Legal Empowerment and Social Accountability: Complementary Strategies Toward Rights-based Development in Health?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 160-172.
    5. Chicoine, Luke & Guzman, Juan Carlos, 2017. "Increasing Rural Health Clinic Utilization with SMS Updates: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 419-430.
    6. Davison Muchadenyika, 2017. "Civil society, social accountability and service delivery in Zimbabwe," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 35, pages 178-195, October.
    7. Mayka, Lindsay & Abbott, Jared, 2023. "Varieties of participatory institutions and interest intermediation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    8. Ogbe, Michael & Lujala, Päivi, 2021. "Spatial crowdsourcing in natural resource revenue management," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    9. World Bank Group, 2014. "Strategic Framework for Mainstreaming Citizen Engagement in World Bank Group Operations," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 21113, December.
    10. Gaduh,Arya Budhiastra & Pradhan,Menno Prasad & Priebe,Jan & Susanti,Dewi, 2021. "Scores, Camera, Action : Social Accountability and Teacher Incentives in Remote Areas," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9748, The World Bank.
    11. Ruppen, Désirée & Brugger, Fritz, 2022. "“I will sample until things get better – or until I die.” Potential and limits of citizen science to promote social accountability for environmental pollution," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    12. Bamanyaki, Patricia, 2014. "Citizen-led gender-responsive budgeting in health: a theory-based approach to evaluating effectiveness," IOB Working Papers 2014.05, Universiteit Antwerpen, Institute of Development Policy (IOB).
    13. Pontus Hedlin, 2018. "And yet they thrive!—Regaining the relevance of a transparency system," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(S1), pages 495-513, March.
    14. Dupas, Pascaline & Jain, Radhika, 2023. "Can beneficiary information improve hospital accountability? Experimental evidence from a public health insurance scheme in India," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    15. Harry Blair, 2018. "Citizen Participation and Political Accountability for Public Service Delivery in India," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 13(1), pages 54-81, April.
    16. Abu Elias Sarker & Syed Awais Ahmad Tipu & Farhana Razzaque, 2022. "An Integrative Dynamic Framework of Social Accountability: Determinants, Initiatives, and Outcomes," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 117-133, March.
    17. Colin Anderson, 2023. "Understanding accountability in practice: Obligations, scrutiny, and consequences," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 41(S1), March.
    18. Hana Brixi & Ellen Lust & Michael Woolcock, 2015. "Trust, Voice, and Incentives: Learning from Local Success Stories in Delivery in MENA," CID Working Papers 295, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    19. Adam S. Harris & Brigitte Seim & Rachel Sigman, 2020. "Information, accountability and perceptions of public sector programme success: A conjoint experiment among bureaucrats in Africa," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 38(5), pages 594-612, September.
    20. Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai, 2018. "The political economy of maternal healthcare in Ghana," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-107-18, GDI, The University of Manchester.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v:8:y:2020:i:4:p:395-406. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.