Eelco Jacobs
Publications and news by Eelco Jacobs.
Publications
Local health governance in Tajikistan: accountability and power relations at the district level
Relationships of power, responsibility and accountability between health systems actors are considered central to health governance. Despite increasing attention to the role of accountability in health governance a gap remains in understanding how local accountability relations function within the health system in Central Asia. This study addresses this gap by exploring local health governance in two districts of Tajikistan using principal-agent theory.
The results of the study:
- provide insight into the complexity of local governance relations and constraints to formal accountability processes;
- underline the importance of informal accountability tools and the political-economic context in shaping principal-agent relations;
- serve to demonstrate the use and limitations of agency theory in health governance analysis;
- point to the importance of entrenched positions of power in local health systems.
Working Paper 16: Social accountability and its conceptual challenges
Social accountability has become a favoured approach among most major multilateral and bilateral donors to develop grass roots mechanisms for democratic governance. In a successful scenario, citizen participation can promote more responsive governments and better provision of basic services by linking users’ feedback to the policy design, implementation and monitoring activities typically undertaken by the state.
However, there is a lack of agreement about which specific types of social accountability interventions yield the best results and what are the causal pathways that are critical to generate positive changes. This paper presents an analytical framework that identifies the key components that are required to exercise effective direct accountability and provides a blueprint to assess social accountability initiatives.
About this Working Paper
This paper appeared in eucrim, the European Criminal Law Associations’ Forum, 2013/2, published by Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, c/o Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, Freiburg i. B., Germany.
This paper is part of the Basel Institute on Governance Working Paper Series, ISSN: 2624-9650.
Using power and influence analysis to address corruption risks: the case of the Ugandan drug supply chain
Power and influence analysis can be used to assess corruption vulnerabilities in the public sector. This approach helps identify powerful stakeholders that should be engaged to achieve maximum impact for anti-corruption strategies. It also helps reveal informal political networks and relationships that can hamper anti-corruption efforts.
Power and influence analysis was applied to the Ugandan public sector drug supply chain and suggested that interventions aimed at reducing corruption risks would need to take into account the influence of informal political power in addition to the formal institutional mandates, and the prevalence of a vast network of patronage networks across the country.
Working Paper 11: A framework to assess governance of health systems in low income countries
As awareness of the role governance in the performance of health systems has increased, so has the need to come up with systematic means to evaluate governance shortcomings to develop adequate interventions.
This working paper describes a framework to assess governance in the health systems of low-income countries that is intended to have empirical applicability with a problem-driven approach. The analysis is grounded on a re-categorization of governance dimensions for greater heuristic power, with an emphasis made on the importance of strategic systems design and accountability.
The proposed methodology includes mapping of both formal and informal institutions, actors and networks. This underscores the idea that in order to properly address governance weaknesses it is of utmost importance to have an insight into whether the interplay of formal and informal norms facilitates or undermines system performance.
About this Working Paper
This paper is part of the Basel Institute on Governance Working Paper Series, ISSN: 2624-9650.