Accountability in Public Services in South Africa

Abstract

This report discusses selected issues
 regarding accountability in public services. The
 introduction discusses the accountability framework that
 will be used for the report. Chapter 1 assesses South
 Africa's progress on service access and quality, and
 summarizes recent policy initiatives. Chapters 2, 3, and 4
 describe the international and South African experience with
 mechanisms that seek to improve accountability - public
 sector reform, citizen report cards, and others - and
 posits hypotheses to be explored in the following chapters.
 Chapter 5 applies the World Bank's accountability
 framework to a participatory assessment of services in six
 municipalities in South Africa. Chapters 6 and 7 apply the
 framework to the education and water and sanitation sectors.
 Chapter 8 explains why community-driven development does not
 factor in any main South African development programs.
 Chapter 9 explains the continuing learning practices
 pioneered in the manufacturing sector and addresses how
 these practices might be used by the South African
 government to effect change. Chapter 10 summarizes the
 conclusions, translates these into main hypotheses to be
 tested in future work, and formulates a number of policy
 recommendations for public debate.