Claiming rights and accountabilty

The accountability agenda has risen to occupy a prominent place in the efforts to promote development. Much of focus on accountability, however, has taken a technocratic view, emphasizing disclosure of information and legal processes. The Citizenship DRC sought to bring another perspective to accountability by looking at the strategies that citizens take to claim accountability from below. The research hypothesized that these bottom-up strategies would be increasingly important in the context of shifting relationships across the state, civil society and market. The work also assumed the perspective that accountability cannot be separated from contests over the realisation of rights and the distribution of resources. The research explored these issues in South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Kenya, Nigeria, Bangladesh, the US, India and other countries.