What’s New
“Who decides what questions get research attention?
Action strategists should have a seat at the table.”
“Who decides what questions get research attention?
Transparency and Accountability Strategies & Reproductive Health Delivery Systems hosted by ARC at American University in June 2016. The workshop was co-designed and co-convened with Vicky Boydell, the Evidence Project/IPPF and Sarah Shaw at the RHSC/MSI. Photo credit: ARC
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News and Events
November 2023 – In Accountability Note 12, Carlos García Jiménez and Jonathan Fox tell the story of a broad-based, collaborative social accountability campaign led by a network of agrarian community leaders which contributed to improving a large-scale government fertilizer program in the Mexican state of Guerrero. In Spanish and English.
October 2023 – Findings from ARC’s research with the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development and the Manusher Jonno Foundation on the Bangladeshi state’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic have been published in a new report.
September 2023 – Judy Gearhart’s Working Paper Building Worker Power in Global Supply Chains: Lessons from Apparel, Cocoa, and Seafood was launched with a webinar.
September 2023 – Article in World Development, published by Jonathan Fox, Rachel Sullivan Robinson, and Naomi Hossain, takes an overview of state-society synergy in 19 case of ‘sandwich strategy’ reform
September 2023 – Spanish version of a ‘sandwich strategy’ case study on Ley 70, a reform of AfroColombian land titling, published for the 30th anniversary of the passage of the law.
September 2023 – Jonathan Fox and Jeff Hallock blog on From Poverty to Power about the link between localization and open government – with a focus on USAID’s funding to Colombia.
July 2023 – Jonathan Fox and Rachel Robinson’s blog for the MacArthur Foundation explains research on 19 examples of ‘sandwich strategies’ – cases of reforms that led to power shifts in favor of marginalized people. They offer six propositions for funders and allies working to support national reformers and enable change.
June 2023 – Suchi Pande published a new practice note on women community health workers in India who have combined rights-based advocacy with work on healthcare tasks paid for by the state.
May 2023 – A Spanish version of Jonathan Fox and Julia Fischer-Mackey’s article on ‘slippery indicators’ published in the inaugural edition of a new journal, Rendición de cuentas.
May 2023 – A journal article from Naomi Hossain, Anuradha Joshi, and Suchi Pande discusses formal grievance redress mechanisms in the Global South
April 2023 – A Research Briefing from Naomi Hossain and Jeff Hallock argues that the global food and energy protests of 2022 signal failures of accountability on a global scale
March 2023 – Judy Gearhart’s ARC Working Paper and blog share learning from labor rights advocates in Bangladesh and Cambodia who work with transnational networks to promote new forms of accountability in global apparel supply chains.
January 2023 – In her new ARC Working Paper, Abrehet Gebremedhin looks at ten cases of mulitilevel monitoring and advocacy in health rights programs, reflecting on vertical and horizontal organizing, and the escalation of unaddressed citizen claims.
January 2023 – New article from Rachel Nadelman and colleagues looks at how donor-funded public accountability programs working in the same place interact.
September 2022 – New article from Angela Bailey and Vincent Mujune in International Journal for Equity in Health analyzes outcomes from direct engagements between citizens and the state to improve health services: Multi-level Change Strategies for Health: Learning from People-centered Advocacy in Uganda.
September 2022 – ARC was supported by the MacArthur Foundation to find out more about ‘sandwich strategies’ – interactive processes where reformers in government encourage citizen action from below, driving virtuous circles of mutual empowerment between pro-accountability actors. Details of 18 case studies from 12 countries, all on one page!
August 2022 – In their new Development in Practice article, Julia Fischer-Mackey and Jonathan Fox discuss the challenges of finding the right indicators to evaluate community monitoring and social accountability initiatives: Pitfalls of “Slippery Indicators”: The Importance of Reading Between the Lines.
July 2022 – New ARC Accountability Note by Helmer Quiñones, in Spanish and English: A cinco años de la implementación del Capítulo Étnico del Acuerdo de Paz en Colombia: Un balance independiente, and The Ethnic Chapter of Colombia’s Peace Agreement Five Years On: An Independent Assessment.
May 2022 – Working paper by Shuvra Chowdhury and Naomi Hossain, Accountability and Responsiveness in Managing Covid-19 in Bangladesh, published by the Institute of Development Studies.
May 2022 – Literature review by Suchi Pande and Naomi Hossain, Grievance Redress Mechanisms in the Public Sector, co-published with the Open Government Partnership for Open Government Week 2022.
May 2022 – Annotated bibliography by Suchi Pande, Social Audits in Service Delivery, co-published with the Open Government Partnership for Open Government Week 2022.
May 2022 – Veena Sriram and Sorcha A. Brophy’s blog, Workers, Not Warriors: Four Lessons from Health Worker Protests during COVID-19, published by The Conversation, May 3, 2022