Dr. R. Balasubramaniam Founder, SVYM Engagement in... · IVRS through mobile phones which facilitates the collection and transfer of data. Vivekananda Institute for Leadership Development

Vivekananda Institute for Leadership Development

Dr. R. Balasubramaniam

Founder, SVYM


• Public Services

• Citizen Engagement

• Social Accountability

• Arogyashreni Project


Public services

Services Provided by Government to People

either Directly or by Financing Private Provision of

Services. Mainly funded by taxation Revenues


Areas of Public Management

• Central & Local Government

• Public Health Services

• Education

• Defense

• Justice / Home affairs

• Non Commercial Semi- State Organizations


Citizen Engagement

Conscious & Deliberate Engagement of

Citizens in a Democracy on Issues that

concerns their Life & Development


Social Accountability

An approach towards building accountability that

relies on Civic/citizen engagement, i.e. in which it is

ordinary citizens or civil society organizations who

participate directly or indirectly in exacting

accountability.

– World bank


How Does It Function

Relies on Civic Engagement, in which

ordinary citizens or CSOs participate directly

or indirectly to exact accountability.

Eg: Participatory budgeting, social audits, citizen

report cards, community score cards.


Benefits

Improved Governance, Increased development

effectiveness through better service delivery,

and empowerment


How Can This Be Achieved

By enhancing the capacities – skills, attitudes

and behaviors of Government and civil society

actors.


A Practical Approach

• Need a careful understanding of the political,

administrative, historical and social context

• Take into account appropriate entry points

• Explore possible synergy between state and society


Cont..

• Have the right mix of social accountability tools

• See how these new practices integrates with

formal accountability mechanisms, institutional

arrangements and incentive structures for public

servants


Parameters to think about when designing

a Social Accountability Initiative

• Incentive structure – punishment vs reward-based

approaches

• Accountability for what? Rule following versus

performance orientation

• Level of Institutionalization – the extent to which

the participation of citizens is institutionalized in the

law or by other formal means


Cont..

• Depth of involvement – the degree to which citizens

are permitted to observe and participate in areas of

government anomaly kept secret or out of reach or

society

• Inclusiveness of participation – the extent to which

participation is limited to only “well behaved” or

socially acceptable groups from civil society or

opened up to a wide variety of actors


Cont..

• Branches of Government – whether target of effort

is executive, legislature, or judiciary.

• Accountability is limited to merely a negative

connotation – desisting from corrupt practices. It

needs to be seen in the light of the affirmative task

of effective performance and proactive decision

making.


Final words

• To be accountable is to work with society and

accounting agencies to improve government

honesty and performance instead of doing one’s

best to hide from scrutiny.

• This proactive behavior that accountability demands

requires dialogue, explanation and justification.


Technology Enabled Community Governance

Arogyashreni

An initiative to facilitate Community Monitoring of

Primary Health Centers (PHCs) in Mysore District

(Rural) and bring positive changes through

advocacy and dialogue.

Goal: Enabling Technology for Effective Community

Monitoring


Objectives

•To collaborate with communities in the creation of the

monitoring system for their local PHCs.

•To utilize the information gained from the monitoring

system to create awareness and empower the

community to drive for change.

•To develop a technology based monitoring system using

IVRS through mobile phones which facilitates the

collection and transfer of data.


The Project Workflow

• Resource Persons

• Community Reps

Training

• Community response to Questionnaires

• Collection of responses

Data Collection

• Field Validation

• Ranking process

• Ranking dissemination

Ranking

• Identification of issues

• Dialogue with PHC MO and health staff

• Dialogue with PRI

• Local solutions

• Escalation to Health Dept

AdvocacyNRHM mandated

communities

(VHSC, ARS, PMC )

Awareness &

Empowerment

IVRS

Technology

& Software


Key Features

• Preparing the questionnaire

• Setting up the technology (IVRS & Software) – 3

to 4 months

• Training of resource persons & AS representatives

• Getting the responses – the data collection cycle

lasted 3 months

• Data analysis and ranking

• Ranking dissemination

• Support from the other related SVYM Projects


Advocacy Outcomes

What

Local level advocacy with 113

PHCs and intensive follow-up with

up-to 18 PHCs in Mysore district

to bring about visible changes


Advocacy Outcomes

How

• Facilitating community

level discussions based on

answers to the questionnaire

• Empowering community

representatives to dialogue with

stakeholders such as PRI,

health department, etc.

• Follow-up on issues and

encourage local solutions and

resources identification,

wherever necessary


Thank You

& You can reach me at

[email protected]

Questions ???

Documents

Dr. R. Balasubramaniam Founder, SVYM Engagement in... · IVRS through mobile phones which facilitates the collection and transfer of data. Vivekananda Institute for Leadership Development