Friday 10 July 2009

Public accountability in a nutshell

Reneé Speijcken is a researcher at the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance. She conducted a research on 'the role of civil society organisResearch presentation accountabilityations in public accountability' for the ICCO Alliance. Special attention is paid to programmes that relate to education and democratisation. Yesterday, she presented her results at the ICCO Alliance head office.

Numerous debates are held on the effectiveness of development aid, whereby Civil Society Organisations are held accountable. This research focused however on Civil Society Organisations holding their governments into account. CSOs, for example play a role in ensuring that governments are on track in reaching formulated objectives like the Millennium Development Goals.

Renée Speijcken describes in a short interview what public accountability is and what it could mean for ICCO:

"Accountability is a way for citizens to hold their government or service providers into account for their behaviour or their performance. ICCO is in an excellent positions with its partners to strengthen citizen organisations to work on these issues."

The research results will contribute to the elaboration of ICCO and Kerk in Actie future vision and policy on public accountability.




I wonder what your government is or isn't doing to realise the MDGs? Can you blog about it (in any language) and hold them accountable?

By Stephanie Zwier

Read more on the End poverty campaign.

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