From the Ground Up: Improving Government Performance with Independent Monitoring Organizations

Preface

ix Over the last three decades democracy has spread like wildfire across the developing world. Billions of people who once feared to speak their mind now have the franchise and the freedoms of speech and assembly. According to Freedom House’s (2008) annual survey of political rights and civil liberties, the number of “free” countries has more than doubled, while the number that are “not free” has fallen by a third. But political freedom is only part of real democracy. Citizens must also take advantage of that freedom by organizing, staying watchful, informing each other, and pressing for change when needed to ensure a government of their choosing that works for them. In short, real democracy requires civil society. This book is about a small but crucial segment of the civil society of developing countries: groups that we call “independent monitoring organizations .” Independent monitoring organizations keep an eye on government spending and service delivery, conducting independent analysis to ensure that the government is acting as it says it is and as its citizens want. Monitoring the structure and use of public budgets is not as dramatic as protesting or running an independent newspaper—but it is every bit as vital to government accountability to citizens. And the existence of organizations willing to engage in the dullness of monitoring public budgets signals democratic maturity. It shows that citizens have grown comfortable with their right to a government that serves them and want to ensure that they have just that. Civil society organizations often start as advocates for a cause, a sector of government, or a marginalized group and usually have limited skill or interest in the analytical side of policies. But as these organizations Preface x Preface mature, many seek a more enduring vision of their role and a more consistent voice in policies, one that will be heard and heeded over the long haul. Because public budgets are the practical manifestation of government strategy and because the resulting programs and services are at the heart of government effectiveness, they become the natural focus of civil society organizations that want to make a difference . Hence the independent monitoring organization. This book is one of three that emerged from a project based at the Brookings Institution and jointly led by the Results for Development Institute from 2005 through 2009 to support the development of civil society groups, like independent monitoring organizations, that use analytical tools to monitor public expenditures in low- and middle-income countries. The other two volumes are How to Improve Governance: A Framework for Analysis and Action (de Ferranti and others 2009), which develops a framework for accountability that explicitly includes civil society organizations like independent monitoring organizations, and Lives in the Balance: Improving Accountability for Public Spending in Developing Nations (Griffin and others 2010), which explores what is known about public spending in developing countries and how civil society organizations might improve the situation. Those books concentrate on the theory and analysis of independent monitoring . But we were not interested in just writing about these ideas. Believing that the best way to learn about monitoring public spending is to start doing it, we devised a competitive small grants program that supported 16 organizations that undertook expenditure- or performance-monitoring projects in health and education beginning in 2007. The results of this grants program were so well done—and covered such a wide range of interesting issues—that we have collected them into this book. This volume illustrates the findings of these 16 independent monitoring organizations as well as—and equally important—the capabilities of the organizations , their processes, and their techniques for using their analysis to influence policies. The Transparency and Accountability Project continues. It is currently working with a new set of 20 independent monitoring organizations whose results will be available in mid-2010. In the meantime this evidence is offered as a testament to the capabilities of developing country civil society in the hope that it offers other civil society organizations a look at the fundamentals—and some of the possibilities—of monitoring government spending and service delivery. ...