Asia-Pacific Regional Centre

Decentralization and Local Governance in Asia and the Pacific

Participation in Decentralized Governance

Participatory governance is necessary to representative democracy, as it encourages transparency and accountability, and prevents corrupt practices that impede the attainment of the MDGs.  UNDP works globally to promote participatory audits of service delivery performance and financial management, as a means to monitor the efficiency of delivery service and to empower citizens to directly engage and attend to public issues that impact their livelihoods.

Although a variety of participatory tools and methodologies (social audits, social accounting, report cards etc.) has been developed, the replication of success stories remains difficult. Despite the large amount of resources spent on developing, refining and implementing various models of social accounting, governments continue to be in the need of practical information that allows them to make an informed decision on the kind of performance measurement system that best suits their needs and that is affordable, in terms of human and financial cost. Hence the need to provide them with readily available information on the various performance measurement methods in use around the world.  

UNDP is currently engaged in a Comparative study on Participatory Monitoring of Service Delivery that seeks to provide an overview of the various systems used worldwide for engaging civil society and the broader public in monitoring the quality of public service delivery and to extract lessons learned that can guide policy development. The comparative study is to be seen as an initial background paper that would support further work at national and regional level on this subject.