Community Participation, Service Delivery and Accountability

This paper provides an overview on some issues and experiences with diverse forms of community participation in the provision of services.  It reviews some of the various service provision arrangements that can be designed to have positive impact on human development outcomes, as well how community participation affects public sector accountability at local, regional and national levels.  The paper considers how different lessons can be drawn from relatively more and less successful experiences from a range of countries and types of services.  It seeks to highlight some factors that have contributed to positive outcomes, both in human development indicators, as well as in institutional sustainability and accountability. 

The paper points out some of the potential benefits of community participation in service delivery, some of the ways in which contextual factors shape participation, and the ways in which exploring specific experiences of participation can provide lessons for policymakers.  Through understanding the importance of the connections between participation, accountability and service delivery, as well as different aspects of context, experiences in community participation can be better assessed.  The major section of the paper is based on case studies used in this document for illustrative purposes, and a more extensive literature cited in the paper (contd) ..