Working Paper on Social Accountability and Legal Empowerment: Allied Approaches in the Struggle for Health Rights
We’re pleased to share with you the attached Working Paper on Social Accountability and Legal Empowerment: Allied Approaches in the Struggle for Health Rights. It explores the intersection between social accountability and legal empowerment programs and highlights the benefits of combining these approaches to better enable socially excluded groups to claim their rights and obtain accountability for service delivery.
On December 2-4, 2014, OSF convened a small group of practitioners and thinkers to explore the potential for integrating these areas of work to better enable socially excluded groups to claim their rights and obtain accountability for service delivery. The convening aimed to provide a space for reflection on lessons, achievements, challenges, and remaining gaps in knowledge and practice. This Working Paper summarizes the background tobut the meeting and synthesizes the discussions that took place and conclusions that were reached.
Social accountability refers to actions other than voting that citizens and civil society can use to hold the state to account, such as budget advocacy, community monitoring and social accountability monitoring. Legal Empowerment approaches promote implementation of the law and access to justice for marginalized people, including the realization of health rights, through their own initiative and participation. Integrating both approaches has the potential to better enable socially excluded groups to claim their rights and obtain accountability for service delivery. In many ways, the two approaches are quite complementary. Social accountability surfaces community injustice and can help ensure the implementation of policies and court decisions. Legal empowerment can address individual grievances, as well as challenge policies and set new precedents and standards.
Извор: Фондација Отворено Општество – 26.06.2015
