Description:

Transparency and accountability have emerged over the past decade as key ways to address both developmental failures and democratic deficits. In the development context, the argument is that through greater accountability, ‘leaky pipes’ of corruption and inefficiency will be repaired, aid will be channelled more effectively, and in turn development initiatives will produce greater and more visible results. For scholars and practitioners of democracy, a parallel argument holds that following the twentieth-century wave of democratization, democracy now has to ‘deliver the goods’, especially in terms of material outcomes, and that new forms of democratic accountability can help it do so. While traditional forms of state-led accountability are increasingly found to be inadequate, thousands of multi-stakeholder and citizen led approaches have come to the fore, to supplement or supplant them.

In this presentation, Dr. John Gaventa, will share results of a ten year research collaborative on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability (www.drc-citizenship.org). This will include highlights from a synthesis across 100 case studies on the outcomes of citizen participation, and how they can be assessed. In addition, he will draw from a recent meta -review of the evidence of the impact and effectiveness of transparency and accountability mechanisms for development, governance and empowerment goals.

Speaker:

• Professor Dr. John Gaventa, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex
• Presentation: So what difference does it make? - Assessing the impact of participation, transparency and accountability (PDF 131KB)
  

Moderated by:

• Mary McNeil, Senior Operations Officer, World Bank Institute

Speaker's Bios:

John Gaventa is a professor at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. For the last ten years he has served as Director of the DFID supported Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability (www.drc-citizenship.org), a network of researchers and practitioners working across more than twenty countries. He has written widely on issues of citizen participation, power and empowerment, democracy and accountability. The author of the award winning book Power and Powerlessness, his most recent volumes include Citizen Action and National Policy Reform (with Rosemary McGee) and Globalizing Citizens (with Rajesh Tandon). He is series editor of the 8 volume Zed Book Series on Claiming Citizenship: rights, participation and accountability. He also serves as Chair of Oxfam Great Britain.

For more information please contact: Suna Karakas.