by Marianne Klinker | Oct 7, 2016
September 2016 | by Brendan Halloran, IBP (adapted from a longer study by Padmaja Nair)
Despite years of strong economic growth in India, rural poverty still affects tens of millions of households. In 2005, the government created the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to address rural poverty. The scheme, which commits the government to providing adult members of rural households with 100 days of paid work, should provide a revolutionary safety net for rural households. Yet corruption, insufficient administrative capacity, a lack of awareness among many rural inhabitants, and manipulation by influential political and economic actors have undermined it.
Samarthan, an organization dedicated to pursuing more inclusive development in the state of Madhya Pradesh, has worked to realize the scheme’s potentially transformative promise. It has pursued this aim through an evolving understanding of the challenges and opportunities inherent in the complex system of actors, processes, and tools. This case study summarizes Samarthan’s approach, the role of IBP in supporting the organization, and describes the impacts and lessons learned.
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by Marianne Klinker | Oct 7, 2016
September 2016 | by Brendan Halloran, IBP (adapted from a longer study by Padmaja Nair)
The state of Maharashta is one of India’s most powerful economic engines. Yet despite India’s commitment to the principle of universal access, the state government spends less than 4 percent of its budget on health. Many social groups in Maharashta still lack access to quality healthcare and poor individuals are often forced to seek expensive private options.
Support for Advocacy and Training to Health Initiatives (SATHI) has been working to improve healthcare in Maharashta for almost 20 years. SATHI has worked with the objective of making the public health delivery system accessible and equitable to all, especially poor and marginalized people. SATHI’s work takes place along three fronts: ensuring the accountability of the public health system, establishing social control over private health systems, and promoting universal access to quality health care.
This case study documents the strategies and achievements of SATHI and its coalition partners, the impacts of CSO interventions on public health delivery and accountability, and challenges that have emerged.
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by Marianne Klinker | Oct 31, 2016
October 2016 | by Sergii Slukhai, Professor of Economics at Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University, Ukraine
Light of Hope was founded in 1999 as a charity association with the mission of helping people living with HIV/AIDS in the Ukrainian city of Poltava and the surrounding region. Over time its mission, and the range of services it has provided, has expanded to encompass other marginalized groups. The organization began to work with people struggling with substance abuse and then former inmates. Light of Hope eventually became one of Ukraine’s largest and most successful non-state service delivery organizations. In 2011 it embarked on a pioneering campaign to collaborate with the city government of Poltava. This case study examines the Light of Hope’s efforts to establish the Poltava Social Adaptation Center, which received unprecedented fiscal support from the local government. It documents how Light of Hope managed to successfully establish a facility to deliver a complex array of services to ex-prisoners, drug users, people who are HIV-positive, and the homeless. Light of Hope was able to garner an unprecedented level of support from the city government for the center, including funding from the city budget. In the process, the organization also challenged the stigma surrounding marginalized groups. This case study provides useful lessons for service delivery organizations seeking a wider strategy for winning social change.
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by Marianne Klinker | Oct 31, 2016
October 2016 | by Iryna Postolovska, Harvard School of Public Health
Corruption takes many forms and guises, some seemingly innocuous. When governments fail to provide enough resources to deliver quality healthcare, can’t charitable contributions help cover the gap? However, when charitable contributions are made to seem like requirements to receive services, and when the funds involved are opaque and unaccountable, there is cause for suspicion.
This case study describes how health advocates in the Ukrainian city of Poltava created the Institute of Analysis and Advocacy (IAA) to take on entrenched corruption in the provision of local healthcare. IAA’s campaign targeted different levels of government and links in the service delivery chain, from individual hospitals to the national legislature. Reformers undertook a variety of complementary tactics to uncover and document corruption, lobby for change, and address the root causes of corruption in the healthcare system. All of this took place against a backdrop of the toppling of a corrupt regime during Ukraine’s Euromaidan Revolution in 2014.
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by Marianne Klinker | Dec 5, 2016
December 2016 | By Paolo de Renzio, International Budget Partnership and Massimo Mastruzzi, The World Bank
Governments sometimes complain that the budget information they make publicly available is seldom accessed and utilized. On the other hand, civil society organizations (CSOs) often claim that the information governments make available is very difficult to understand and not detailed enough to allow for meaningful analysis and advocacy. Is there a mismatch between the budget information supplied by governments and demand among civil society?
This paper examines the “demand side” of fiscal transparency using findings from a global survey of 176 individuals working in civil society that use budget information for analysis and advocacy activities. Based on the responses, the authors identify a “fiscal transparency effectiveness gap” between the fiscal information that governments often provide and the information that CSOs need.
These findings are used to develop a set of recommendations to help governments ensure their transparency practices deliver increased citizen engagement, improved oversight, and enhanced accountability.
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