This article applies a novel conceptual framework to characterise and assess the repertoire of practices used by informal networks to redistribute power and access to resources. These distinct norms and practices are typologised as co-optation, control, and camouflage. Co-optation involves recruitment into the network by means of the reciprocal exchange of favours. Control is about ensuring discipline amongst network members by means of shaming and social isolation. Camouflage refers to the formal facades behind which informality hides and is about protecting and legitimising the network.

Ignorance, apathy and disempowerment are recurring drivers of impunity. Social accountability, on its part, aims to empower citizens with information and provide effective channels through which to exercise agency. 

Authored by Claudia Baez Camargo, Head of Governance Research, this publication guides practitioners towards localising anti-corruption interventions that invite citizen participation in order to make them more effective.

The UK Department for International Development (DFID), through its East Africa Research Fund (EARF), commissioned the Basel Institute on Governance to conduct the research project “Corruption, Social Norms and Behaviours in East Africa” aiming at shedding light into those “[behavioural] factors that influence the propensity for poor people to engage in, resist and report ‘corrupt transactions’” in three East African countries, namely, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

The UK Department for International Development (DFID), through its East Africa Research Fund (EARF), commissioned the Basel Institute on Governance to conduct the research project “Corruption, Social Norms and Behaviours in East Africa” aiming at shedding light into those “[behavioural] factors that influence the propensity for poor people to engage in, resist and report ‘corrupt transactions’” in three East African countries, namely, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

The UK Department for International Development (DFID), through its East Africa Research Fund (EARF), commissioned the Basel Institute on Governance to conduct the research project “Corruption, Social Norms and Behaviours in East Africa” aiming at shedding light into those “[behavioural] factors that influence the propensity for poor people to engage in, resist and report ‘corrupt transactions’” in three East African countries, namely, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

The UK Department for International Development (DFID), through its East Africa Research Fund (EARF), commissioned the Basel Institute on Governance to conduct the research project “Corruption, Social Norms and Behaviours in East Africa” aiming at shedding light into those “[behavioural] factors that influence the propensity for poor people to engage in, resist and report ‘corrupt transactions’” in three East African countries, namely, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

This practitioners’ handbook provides the required tools for contextualising social accountability initiatives aimed at empowering citizens to engage in anti-corruption actions. The material herein contained has been developed through a collaborative effort with UNDP and reflects the findings from academic research conducted in the scope of the ANTICORRP research consortium (anticorrp.eu).

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.

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.