Service Delivery Monitoring ENG
Service Delivery Monitoring ENG
Service Delivery Monitoring ENG
GOAL
The goal of the Hewlett Foundation’s service delivery monitoring sub-strategy is to contribute
to more equitable and better quality services in health, education, water, and sanitation,
especially for women, girls, lower income groups, and other marginalized sectors of society.
The intent is to produce these intermediate outcomes:
LINK TO STRATEGY
This sub-strategy focuses on where citizens most frequently expect to receive benefits from
their governments: the provision of essential public services. Under this sub-strategy we will
support programs that offer inclusive opportunities to learn more about how to increase the
motivation and ability of citizens to work together to hold their governments (national and
local) and service providers accountable for the delivery of quality public services. These
These materials were prepared as part of the Hewlett Foundation’s internal planning process and do not represent
actions to be taken by Hewlett Foundation staff or by grantee staff at the foundation’s direction. In particular,
although some of the progress indicators, targets, or metrics may reflect the passage of legislation (based on
inputs from grantees and experts in the field), the Hewlett Foundation does not lobby or earmark its funds for
prohibited lobbying activities, as defined in the federal tax laws. The Foundation’s funding for policy work is
limited to permissible forms of support only, such as general operating support grants that grantees can allocate
at their discretion and project support grants for nonlobbying activities (e.g., public education and nonpartisan
research).
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programs can take many forms, but are commonly referred to as “social accountability”
programs.
We expect that our grantmaking under the Fiscal Transparency sub-strategy will help create
the conditions for success for this strategy in three important ways: (a) reinforcing the
implementation of global norms and standards related to budget transparency, extractive
revenues transparency, and open contracting at the country level will create common
expectations among government and nongovernment actors about what information the public
has a right to know; (b) service delivery monitoring grantees will benefit from the information
produced, analytical tools, approaches, and advocacy efforts of these expert organizations; and
(c) opportunities for country- or regional-level collaboration will emerge.
Context and the politics of service delivery matter. In recent research, Fox and Aceron
(2016) suggest that social accountability interventions will be more likely to succeed where
practitioners are equipped to analyze and effectively navigate their local context — the politics,
administrative structures, regulations, oversight bodies (or absence thereof), and stakeholder
groups associated with service delivery. One or more of these factors may also differ across
public service sectors within a country.
Some local contexts may appear “open,” but in fact still prove challenging. Government
policies that support transparency and expansion of citizen participation may be in place, but
not yet aligned with ways for citizens to engage with their government. Important factors
include whether there is sufficient space for civil society organizations to play a role beyond
direct service provision; whether citizens have trust in their governments or the confidence
that their own actions can effect positive change (citizen agency); and whether there are
capable NGOs and local grassroots organizations, associations, or a culture of collective citizen
action that can be harnessed.
Constructive engagement can take many forms, and may change over time. Given a range
of contexts, different tactics are required. Constructive engagement exists on a continuum that
includes a range of adversarial and cooperative tactics. These may be adapted over time
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depending on the types of information, advocacy, alliances, and citizen collective action that
ultimately incentivize governments and service providers to respond positively.
Citizens need information that is meaningful, actionable, and that creates a response.
The salience of different types of information is not only conditioned by the context. The type
of information matters, as does whether citizens, service providers, the media, and government
perceive its source as legitimate. The support that local stakeholders receive to take action,
often through trusted mediators, also matters. In their recent research, Björkman Nyqvist et al.
(2017) find that community-based monitoring in the health sector in Uganda did produce
significant long-term impacts on health outcomes when comparative information about health
facility performance was provided, and when health providers and community groups agreed
on and followed through on actions (or where needed, sanctions) that were both within their
local control and could affect service quality. Gullo et al. (2016) and Westhorp et al. (2016)
likewise find that community-based monitoring shows promise where local stakeholders
(service providers and community groups) are able to exercise sufficient agency and focus on
those actions that are most likely to affect health and education service quality and outcomes.
Boydell and Keesbury (2014) identified the following enabling factors for social accountability
to lead to improvements in service delivery:
Enabling Factors
Citizens have access to relevant information. Citizens know their entitlements, have the
ability to access information about specific
commitments and services as well as
information about the relevant decision-
making processes.
Citizens have the capacity to use information. Once citizens have accessed the pertinent
information, they have the capacity to use
information to support their demands.
The state has the capacity to respond to Once citizens’ demands are made, duty
citizens’ requests. bearers have the interest and capacity (staff,
resources, and remittance) to respond to
citizens’ requests.
Incentives and sanctions are in place to Formal and institutionalized incentives and
compel decision makers to respond. sanctions that compel duty bearers to act
upon requests from citizens are in place.
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Power and participation asymmetries often exclude the most marginalized groups. The
World Bank (2017) observed that participatory processes in service delivery governance are
easily subject to elite capture. The most marginalized citizens are often the least able to
participate in a meaningful way due to such factors as opportunity/time costs as well as social
and political norms. Facilitated and structured processes for ensuring equitable participation
or other mechanisms that level the playing field and lower these barriers are thus needed if
social accountability is to achieve its promise.
We envision these specific areas of grantmaking under our service delivery monitoring sub-
strategy:
• Supporting the work of exemplar organizations and alliances that use social
accountability approaches in a way that will contribute to the Hewlett Foundation’s
goal and intermediate outcomes.
• Supporting empirical research, impact evaluations, convenings, and peer learning that
will generate and share evidence to better understand whether, how, and under what
conditions (local context) these interventions work; their contribution to improve
development outcomes; and the extent to which these approaches can be scaled,
institutionalized (through legal, policy, or regulatory changes), and sustained over time.
• Creating opportunities to close the knowledge gap and better connect activists,
advocates, and sector-focused practitioners of social accountability to the transparency,
participation, and accountability field to cultivate more practice-based learning.
As noted, most social accountability tactics depend on citizens using information about their
rights, government commitments, spending, and/or service delivery quality to press their case.
This information may come from official sources, or be externally generated. To advance and
sustain citizen engagement, information must be what users need and care about and must
come from a source they consider credible, and in a form they can digest and act on in ways
that are likely to make a real difference — concerns that will inform our future grants.
Some of the types of information that we think will be important include the following:
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outcomes (measures of children’s learning; women’s use of contraceptives; maternal
and child health; safe, reliable, and adequate water supply for multiple uses; etc.).
• Information about what citizens should expect in terms of coverage and service delivery
standards, prices and fees for services, and what they can do when their experience
differs from stated policies.
• Citizen feedback about their satisfaction with service provider performance in
specific areas of concern, or on their experiences at health facilities, schools, or other
points of service delivery.
• Information about corruption or corrupt practices that affect citizens’ access to
quality services, and what citizens can do about them.
• Information about the amount that people are taxed and what they are receiving (or
not) in terms of service delivery in return.
Achieving and then translating accountability gains from the subnational level to the national
level is often elusive. Therefore, our future grantmaking will also place more attention on a
challenging frontier: finding ways for civil society organizations and citizen groups to engage in
strategic advocacy or collective action that builds and sustains accountability at the national
level.
Given the significant experimentation that has already taken place in social accountability
interventions, and the foundation’s limited resources, our grantmaking in service delivery
monitoring will be directed toward organizations that have a well-articulated hypothesis about
how their program will lead to changes in citizens’ sense of agency and ability to take collective
action, government or service provider responsiveness, and more equitable and better quality
service delivery. Organizations must also demonstrate a commitment to learning through
evaluation, and connecting and sharing with other practitioners, researchers, and donors.
We will strongly prefer programs that can help reveal, and importantly contribute to, closing
the gaps between the promises that donors and national governments make and the service
delivery realities that people experience in their communities. Thus, we anticipate that many of
our service delivery monitoring grantees will also use the results from social accountability
interventions as evidence to strengthen and “give teeth” to advocacy campaigns and policy
dialogue, as illustrated below (Source: Jonathan Fox and Waad Tammaa in Fox and Halloran
(2016), p.6).
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Finally, we will strongly prefer organizations that can articulate a vision about how their
intervention will lead to normalization, broader uptake, and sustained transparency, as well as
more inclusive citizen participation and accountability mechanisms within a country or region.
Fox and Aceron (2016) describe this as “taking scale into account,” referring to “how different
levels of decision-making interact with each other (from the local level to district, provincial,
national and transnational arenas) – both for the public sector and for civil society.”(p. 3)
The field of social accountability has grown over the past decade. More international and
national-level nongovernmental organizations have begun to experiment with social
accountability approaches that enable citizens to better understand their rights, have a voice in
determining local development priorities, and exercise oversight over public service delivery.
Some of these organizations identify themselves as practitioners in the “transparency,
participation, and accountability” field. Others identify themselves as human rights
organizations or development organizations that have adopted a rights-based approach. Still
others are sector-specific development organizations that focus on ensuring effective service
delivery through system-strengthening work or advocacy, and recognize that citizen
engagement is part of a long-term effort for sustained progress. The Hewlett Foundation is
interested in what can be learned from a range of effective organizations that apply social
accountability approaches in education, health, water, and sanitation.
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The most successful service delivery monitoring grantees/organizations will be those that have
the knowledge and ability to do the following:
• Deeply understand the context in which they work and have a commitment over the
long haul.
• Build capacity of organized and inclusive citizen groups to interpret and use information,
especially member-based organizations.
• Facilitate citizen collective action to use this information to make demands and/or co-
create solutions with service providers and governments.
• Leverage existing or create new channels or platforms for citizen feedback, constructive
engagement, or redress actions with service providers or governments.
• Link these efforts to well-structured, evidence-based advocacy campaigns and other efforts to
institutionalize accountability mechanisms and reforms.
By organized and inclusive citizen groups1 we mean local groups with the following conditions:
• Groups that are already constituted/formed and have a history of working together (and
which may be informal such as membership organizations, neighborhood associations,
local activists groups, etc.).
• Groups that have a direct stake in the problem and are thus motivated to engage in a
sustained way in its resolution with intermediaries and government actors.
1. The Hewlett Foundation is not able to make direct grants to local citizen groups.
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• Groups that offer a safe and inclusive space for traditionally marginalized groups to
participate and benefit (women, girls, people of low socioeconomic status and/or low
literacy, different language groups, etc.).
In summary, the foundation will consider the following selection criteria in our service delivery
monitoring grantmaking. We will be seeking international, regional, or national-level NGOs
that have:
• Strong, legitimate and trusting relationships with organized and inclusive citizens’
organizations already in place.
• A track record and a commitment to sustaining their work with these groups over time.
• Constructive and multifaceted relationships with relevant government entities (at the
national or local level or both, depending on the theory of change).
• Some experience using and/or knowledge of existing accountability mechanisms (if
available).
• The capacity to analyze and understand the politics of service delivery and barriers that
need to be overcome in relation to gender, socioeconomic status, and other forms of
exclusion.
• A demonstrable interest in learning, adapting, and sharing what they do and how they
do it.
• A connection to sector-specific and/or global transparency, participation, and
accountability networks and platforms.
We also expect grantees to be curious about and have some ideas about how they will test their
assumptions and adapt their theory of change over time. We will look for ways to provide
additional support (through Organizational Effectiveness grants, peer learning exchanges, and
other technical support) to grantees who need help figuring out how to test their assumptions,
learn, and adapt.
• Thematic, stand-alone global or national advocacy or media campaigns that are neither
evidence-based nor connected with social accountability or service delivery monitoring
efforts
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• Pilot or micro-level social accountability programs, unless they offer exceptional
opportunities for answering some of our priority learning questions and ideas for how
they will do so.
• Programs outside of the Hewlett Foundation's focus regions or sectors.2
LEARNING QUESTIONS
• Well organized and strategic advocacy campaigns that use evidence and build upon
subnational service delivery monitoring programs will create sufficient pressure for
national-level service delivery reforms.
• NGOs/CSOs are able to form effective alliances, coordinate, and act collectively on
national level advocacy campaigns.
• How can a range of types of information across multiple sectors be made more
accessible, credible, and relevant to citizens?
• What ways of presenting information are most likely to encourage citizen action?
• How can this information be used to catalyze local action among organized civic
groups, local officials, and other community leaders? Are there differences in the types
and sources of information that are most important/motivate certain types of civic
2. Our focus regions are: West Africa, East Africa, and Mexico; our priority sectors are education, health, water,
and sanitation.
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groups or people (especially women, youth, the poor, informal workers, and other
marginalized groups)?
• What can be coupled with this information to increase the likelihood that action is
taken? Are there differences in the types/composition of groups or people that take
action?
• Local CSOs have capacities and resources to generate reliable, accurate, and accessible
information; citizens can understand and are motivated to use information;
government accepts information is reliable and accurate.
• Government and/or service providers have the incentive to listen to citizens requests;
government has authority, capacity, and incentive to make changes to improve service
delivery.
• Government and/or service providers respond positively and deliver improved and
equitable services that meet citizens’ needs.
• With ability, motivation, and the right conditions (e.g., supportive environment,
sufficient time and resources, strategies and practices to overcome gender, class, low
literacy, and other barriers), citizens will join together to express their interests and
take action.
• Government will listen and respond to citizens who speak and act collectively and this
will produce a sustained engagement between citizens and government.
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We will seek to test these related assumptions:
• What are the most effective forms and means of support for subnational civic groups
such as teachers’ and parents’ associations, youth groups, women’s organizations,
school management committees, health committees, water users associations, local
development committees, village councils, etc.? How can such groups avoid being
captured by elites and how are these groups engaging (or not) in useful ways with
national-level civil society organizations?
• What are the synergies between service delivery monitoring, fiscal transparency, and
governance channels work, and how do we facilitate those connections?
• How do we know when political economy contexts or other changes suggest that efforts
to encourage accountability should be redirected, scaled back, or abandoned?
• Grantees/CSOs can build partnerships (trust and respect) with citizens, citizen groups,
and other CSOs; can avoid being captured by elites; and not compete with each other
for resources.
• Grantees are capable of developing tactics in relation to analysis of context
(political/economy/cultural); monitoring and evaluating their effectiveness; and
learning and adapting their tactics accordingly over time to increase the chance of
success.
• The Hewlett Foundation will be able to identify specific and actionable ways to support
our grantees in learning and adapting.
In five years, we hope to have seeded multiple service delivery monitoring/social accountability
interventions that have demonstrably increased government responsiveness to citizens’
demands and needs for improved service delivery. Through this work, we hope that the
evidence base around social accountability is much stronger and more nuanced. We also hope
to better understand gender, class, and other barriers, which approaches are more successful at
overcoming these, and whether there are differences in the results that can be achieved across
different types of services (education, health, water, and sanitation).
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Within the next five years, we expect that many of our grantees will have achieved the
following intermediate outcomes:
We also expect that through these experiences and our encouragement and support for our
grantees’ learning, we will have contributed evidence and knowledge related to the priority
learning questions identified in this sub-strategy. Finally, we expect our grantmaking portfolio
to have evolved in the following ways:
• We have a better understanding of the role of gender, class, and other differences in
service delivery monitoring initiatives.
• We have a cohort of grantees in the health, education, water, and sanitation sectors who
are both testing service delivery monitoring interventions and approaches for moving
from local to national-level reforms and accountability, as well as sharing what they are
learning with others.
• We have examples of effective collaboration and alliances between organizations
(CSOs/NGOs and civic groups, advocacy organizations, researchers, etc.) working
toward transparency, participation, and accountability goals.
• We have connected those doing social accountability and budget/fiscal openness work
in specific sectors to transparency, participation, and accountability field learning
platforms and networks, resulting in expanded field learning.
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