Suchi Pande

Accountability Research Centre American University Washington D.C.

Institutionalized complaint systems are notable features of improving public programmes and government practice. This article reviews literature on formal grievance redress mechanisms in the global South to understand whether these mechanisms help the aggrieved to complain and seek redress for their grievances. In this emerging literature, the inst...

This annotated bibliography looks at global evidence on Social Audits. It was developed to support the Open Government Partnership's Skeptic's Guide 2022

This chapter looks at the evidence on complaint mechanisms in the public sector and was developed to support the Open Government Partnership's Skeptic’s Guide 2022.

India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee became a lifeline for migrant labor arbitrarily expelled from cities and left stranded and broke due to COVID-19 lockdowns. One of the largest employment safety net program in the world, it comes with a mandate for state governments to carry out “social audits,” a procedure empowering its beneficiaries to...

Case brief on good practices in COVID-19 policy responses developed for the International Budget Partnership.

Case brief on good practices in COVID-19 policy responses developed for the International Budget Partnership.

Case brief on good practices in COVID-19 policy responses developed for the International Budget Partnership.

This paper draws on the findings of 15 case studies of COVID-19-related fiscal policy responses from around the world. It was developed for the International Budget Partnership.

This post discusses an important accountability strategy, social audits, tracing their emergence in movement-led jan sunwais or public hearings to their current institutionalized role in India’s founding national employment legislation. This post reflects on the ongoing struggle to make social audits work for India’s working poor, briefly discusses...

August 26, 2020 • This post discusses two development policies that sound technical, but which are really important. Social protection is the set of services that help protect people against economic shocks or disasters, and from the ups-and-downs all people face in their life-cycle. Social audits are organized by citizens to audit, monitor, and he...

This paper analyzes how India's rights to information and work evolved strategically in relationship to each other over an extended period of time. Providing a long view of two-decades of multi-scaled activism by the social movement Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) and its allies, this paper illustrates how local level activism to combat corru...

Motivation Social accountability by civil society is an important part of strengthening democratic governance and improving the delivery of public services. Purpose The article documents the landscape of social accountability in two metropolitan cities. We identify widespread and contrasting forms of activism by the poor in metropolitan Delhi and...

This Accountability Note illustrates how the CHW program of the Chhattisgarh state government in central India— known as Mitanin—has, over time, developed a learning strategy that permits CHWs (Mitanins) to enable sustained action on public accountability, whilst simultaneously providing health services and education, and linking communities with g...

Working Paper

India's Right to Information Act is one of the most powerful in the world, but the increasing attacks on users of the law suggest a need for further measures. The results of an analysis of newspaper reports indicates the need of a greater focus on how right to information laws are used and increasing awareness of reprisals against users. Donors can...

This article focuses on the campaign of a Delhi-based citizens' group, called Parivartan, to improve access of the poor to the Public Distribution System (PDS). The PDS is India's national food security programme but corruption and mismanagement have limited its benefits for the poor. This article shows how Parivartan, through the use of Right to I...