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Accountability is the process by which those in power are made (1) to answer for their decisions, actions and inaction, (2) to perform their obligations and mandates set in laws and norms (3) to respond to citizen demands and voice. Accountability helps improve government performance by making information accessible to be used by citizens in demanding response from government on issues affecting them. Social accountability, i.e., accountability that involves citizens is transformative if scaled up and sustained.
A key accountability issue today is ensuring effectiveness and responsiveness from government agencies and programs, especially those serving the poor and marginalized and generating revenues from the government.
The fight against corruption is another call needing new, revitalized and strategic actions from civil society. Part of this is ensuring that accountability institutions like the Ombudsman, the Commission on Audit (COA), the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), the Civil Service Commission (CSC) perform their mandate in checking exercise of power of government instrumentalities, as well as ensuring that mechanism such as performance assessments, monitoring systems and citizen feedback and grievance redress are working.
What is the current state of transparency, participation and accountability (TPA) in the country today and in localities all over the country? What is the condition of existing mechanisms and what are the efforts undertaken by civil society and government to do TPA differently? How can we do TPA better to more effectively strengthen accountability in governance, stop corruption and make government programs, projects and services more responsive and accessible to the people, especially the poorest? What are the prospects for citizen monitoring, participatory budgeting, independent civil society oversight in the current dispensation? Given G-Watch priorities, the focus will be on state of accountability and TPA prospects in health, social protection, infrastructure and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Serving as an open space for dialogue, reflection and collective learning, this discussion series will take up these questions by gathering key leaders from civil society, government and private sector in select G-Watch sites. Particularly, representatives from national and local accountability institutions shall be invited, including COA, CHR, CSC, the Office of the Ombudsman, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), monitoring units of the local government unit local government units (LGU) and others. New knowledge materials and tools by G-Watch on accountability shall also be shared during the discussion.
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