Social accountability, citizenship and social protection in the MENA region: exploring the linkages

Abstract

Using examples from cash transfer programmes and Community Score Card processes in the education and health sectors, this chapter explores the theoretical and empirical linkages between social accountability, citizenship and social protection in the MENA region. Social accountability initiatives are considered to have the potential to empower citizens in holding service providers to account, and by raising their awareness of their social rights, contribute to the emergence of “social citizenship” or even to a new social contract in the region. Many domestic and external actors have thus started to include accountability mechanisms in social protection programmes such as cash transfers and education and health provision for vulnerable groups. The available evidence reviewed here highlights the constraints for social accountability to come about in such programmes, such as information asymmetries, fear of sanctions when raising grievances and the (at times) negative role played by social workers, who are often key actors in mediating the state–society divide. A review of the work by CARE International in the area of Community Score Cards shows, however, that they can lead to positive instrumental, relational (empowerment) and even systemic (institutional) changes, especially when certain contextual factors are in place, such as access to information rights. Given the frequent reluctance of service providers to get involved in such processes, there is nevertheless a risk that a rights discourse is toned down and citizen and civil society participation in service delivery is promoted instead, thereby letting the state “off the hook”. The key challenge is thus to ensure the “political salience” of service provision for state officials without further entrenching co-optation and patronage systems, and to institutionalize transparent and credible public interfaces between states and citizens in which mutual accountability relations can be fostered.