Working Paper

Shifting Power? Assessing the Impact of Transparency and Accountability Initiatives

Published on 23 November 2011

This paper arises from a review of the impact and effectiveness of transparency and accountability initiatives which gathered and analysed existing evidence, discussed how it could be improved, and evaluated how impact and effectiveness could be enhanced.

This paper takes the discussion further, by delving into what lies behind the methodological and evaluative debates currently surrounding governance and accountability work. It illustrates how choices about methods are made in the context of impact assessment designs driven by different objectives and different ideological and epistemological underpinnings.

We argue that these differences are articulated as methodological debates, obscuring vital issues underlying accountability work, which are about power and politics, not methodological technicalities. In line with this argument, there is a need to re-think what impact means in relation to accountability initiatives, and to governance and social change efforts more broadly.

This represents a serious challenge to the prevailing impact paradigm, posed by the realities of unaccountable governance, unproven accountability programming and uncertain evidence of impact. A learning approach to evaluation and final impact assessment would give power and politics a central place in monitoring and evaluation systems, continually test and revise assumptions about theories of change and ensure the engagement of marginalised people in assessment processes. Such an approach is essential if donors and policy makers are to develop a reliable evidence base to demonstrate that transparency and accountability work is of real value to poor and vulnerable people.

Authors

Rosemary McGee

Research Fellow

John Gaventa

Research Fellow and Director, Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA) programme

Publication details

published by
IDS
authors
McGee, R. and Gaventa, J.
journal
IDS Working Paper, issue 383
isbn
978 1 78118 039 6

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About this publication

Programmes and centres
Centre for Development Impact

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