Accountability is the ability to hold organizations and individuals answerable for their policies, implementation processes and use of resources and responsible for performance. Accountability involves both answerability and enforcement. Answerability obliges the government agency to provide account for its actions and includes a citizen’s right to get a response and an obligation on the part of the public servant to answer. Enforceability provides the means of realization in the event of failure to provide an answer through complaint/grievance redress mechanisms, independent ombudsman, vigilance machinery, etc. Accountability in turn is related to surveillance, monitoring, oversight, controls, checks, restraint, public response and punishment. Corruption and exclusion are often the result of lack of accountability on the part of those who wield authority.

The World Development Report 2004 frames the notion of accountability in terms of responsiveness of providers, as well as the ability of recipients of services to monitor and discipline them. Increased voice and participation of beneficiaries, as well as policy makers’ ability to reward and penalize effective/ineffective service providers, are suggested mechanism for strengthening of accountability along three key dimensions. The framework is depicted in the following diagram.

The diagram is supposed to represent the service delivery chain, unbundled into actors and relationships. Poor people are the target group of interventions and they are identified by/through indicators, household surveys, and other “participatory” devices. Policymakers are defined in the report as “politicians” and, more in general, as “those who have the responsibility of formulating collective objectives”. Providers are those organisations in charge of the actual delivery of services, be they central or local governments, NGOs, community- based organisations, etc. Two routes of accountability are identified in the report.

The key prescription embedded in this relation is to increase the accountability of policymakers to its poor citizens, for example, through strengthening the electoral process, democratic decentralisation, by increasing the relevance and role of civil society organisations, and consequently the voice of the poor, etc. This concept of accountability is not confined to poor people alone and applies to all sections of people or citizen who have rights and entitlements. However, it goes without saying that
the poor people are most vulnerable section for society and hence the public policy instruments needs to take social safe guards to ensure accountability to them.

Types of Accountability

Accountability could be both internal accountability and external accountability which can in turn be political, social and managerial.

Political Accountability

• Consists of checks and balances within the state including over delegated individuals in public office responsible for carrying out specific tasks on behalf of citizens.
• The state provides an account of its actions, and consults citizens prior to taking an action in order to enforce rights and responsibilities.
• Mechanisms of political accountability can be both horizontal and vertical. The state imposes its own horizontal mechanisms, such as ombudsmen and parliamentary audit committees. Citizens and civil society groups use vertical mechanisms, such as elections and court cases.

Social Accountability

• Focuses on citizen action aimed at holding the state to account using strategies such as social mobilization, press reports and legal action.
• Addresses issues such as citizen security, judicial autonomy and access to justice, electoral fraud and government corruption.
• Provides extra sets of checks and balances on the state in the public interest, exposing instances of corruption, negligence and oversight which horizontal forms of accountability are unlikely or unable to address.

 Managerial Accountability

• Focuses on financial accounting and reporting within state institutions, judged according to agreed performance criteria.
• Mechanisms include auditing, to verify income and outgoing funds.
• New trends in managerial accountability are moving towards incorporating different indicators of financial integrity and performance such as social and environmental audits.