Dr. Nathan Fiala, University of Connecticut
Seminar Title: "Social Accountability and Service Delivery: Evidence from a Large-Scale Experiment in Uganda"
Abstract:
Corruption and mismanagement of public resources affects the quality of government services and undermines development. What prevents citizen’s in poor communities from strengthening social accountability and obtaining higher returns from public investments? We analyze whether the provision of monitoring skills and information on how to report cases of mismanagement allows citizens to improve local development projects. As part of a large-scale community-driven program implemented in 895 communities across Northern Uganda, we randomly select 604 communities to receive a six-day training on social accountability. The study is unique in its size and its integration in a national program, led by government in partnership with civil society organizations. We also employ novel data collections to measure the quality of local public officials, and determine the impact of the program on the quality and quantity of outputs delivered, community participation and trust in government. The program increased project quality by 0.135 standard deviations in the short-run. 18 months after the program ended, we find that beneficiaries in treatment communities have on average 0.31 more cattle, an increase of 14% over the control group. This effect is concentrated in communities that received a livestock program and represents approximately 31% of the animals that they were supposed to receive. These results are stronger in areas that are generally considered to be more corrupt by local officials. The impacts appear to come, at least in part, from community members increasing their monitoring of programs and making more complaints to local and national officials. We also find significant decreases in whether people trust their local community leaders, but increases in trust in the central government. The results suggest that government-led, large-scale social accountability training can strengthen communities’ ability to address mismanagement at the local level, as well as improve service delivery and relations with central governments.
Friday, September 22, 2017
11:30am - 12:45pm
W.B. Young Building, room 132
View the full Fall 2017 ARE Seminar Schedule
For more information, contact: Tatiana Andreyeva at tatiana.andreyeva@uconn.edu