CommGAP (Communication for Governance Accountability Programme) held a workshop on November 1-2, exploring how to increase the effectiveness of and demand for social accountability mechanisms. The event, held at the World Bank office in Paris, gathered around 25 representatives from academia, civil society, governments and development organizations from various countries.

The discussion covered a wide variety of topics, but returned repeatedly to the importance of: understanding and working within the realities of the given political system; treating access to information as a basic right; and strengthening and broadening the use of social accountability mechanisms without suppressing local creativity, which is already fueling such efforts worldwide.

Political systems can be navigated towards accountability, but there is no silver bullet for doing it. One must look for solutions within the specific context.

Those developing accountability mechanisms should not see governments 'enemies' but should rather engage them and demonstrate the usefulness of these tools for them as well.

Information access is a pre-requisite for demanding accountability from governments. Having freedom of information laws is not sufficient but a 'rights-based' approach is necessary and access to information should be considered a basic right of the people, rather than just a legal obligation of the government

Formalizing and institutionalizing social accountability mechanisms is important to make them sustainable. Simply providing mechanisms for social accountability is not enough but citizens must be transformed and empowered enough to seek information and to be able to use it effectively.

The discussion led to the question-much debated but never fully answered: Do people (such as civil society leaders, donors, etc.) who are trying to encourage demand for social accountability mechanisms have to wait for significant problems to come to light and cause upset, or rather should they support and help develop a culture of demand for accountability so that the people themselves can unearth and understand the source of the problems? Some said that the tangible problems, with poor public service, for example, had to arise first, before people would demand accountability. Others said that, unless people first had enough basic information, were aware of their rights as citizens, and felt the environment was safe, they would not even begin to consider that they could demand accountability from anyone.