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While work on accountability and transparency towards the mutual goals of deepening democratic governance, meeting development targets and delivering basic services appears to be growing, there also have been few opportunities for these various actors to come together to share approaches, to develop strategies for more synergistic work, and to think further about how to build the field. The risks of failing to do so are large - work could remain in silos, lessons and learning could remain unshared and opportunities for collaboration that would make the work greater than the sum of its parts could be missed.
In order to build on the opportunities, as well as to minimize these risks, DFID and the Open Society Institute convened a workshop at the Bellagio Study and Conference Centre, Italy from June 16 - 20, 2008 around the theme of "Innovations in Accountability and Transparency through Citizen Engagement -The role of Donors in Supporting and Sustaining Change". The workshop brought together 23 participants from civil society organisations, bilateral and multilateral aid organisations and private foundations for the purposes of;
Sharing knowledge and practical learning of 'What's working? What's innovative? And what's missing?' in work on accountability and transparency;
Identifying key issues and factors for success; and
Developing a broader vision/strategy for building the field collaboratively.
On the issue 'Why Accountability Why Now' there was a consensus among the participants that accountability was not simply a question of 'accountancy' or of counting. Rather, it represents a core principle of democratic relationships between states and citizens, which must be strengthened in order to realize broader goals of governance and development. Similarly, while citizen or civil society-led initiatives for accountability and transparency are increasingly seen as critical, so too is it important to focus on 'both sides of the citizen-state equation', through also supporting the capacity of governments to respond to citizen demand, and for civil society initiatives to link to official bodies, such as oversight commissions, parliaments and others.
The workshop went on to hear about a number of innovative strategies for accountability from practitioners and donors, including a special session on information, the role of media and new technologies. Key trend in the discussion was that accountability strategies used by practitioners are many, though often they may not be linked up in practice and information is a fundamental part of the enabling environment, and yet much more could be done to use new information tools, media and technologies to make information useable and accessible to broader populations. From the presentations of case studies, the workshop generated six broad areas on which more work would be needed to deepen or extend the collective impact of the work. These included:
1. Making the case and sharing our knowledge
2. New strategic emphases and directions (evidence on impacts to build new forms of learning)
3. Extending the reach: linking to and building broad-based demand at the grassroots
4. Joining up strategies for scale and sustainability
5. Building donors' own accountability and legitimacy
6. Developing innovative funding mechanisms
The workshop reviewed progress on addressing the challenges and opportunities and came back to the task of outlining a broader strategy vision for building the accountability field. More information on the workshop is available in the report placed at the link below.
Source: http://www.drc-citizenship.org/publications/Report%20from%20Bellagio%20workshop%20-%20final.pdf
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