The document summarizes recommendations for enhancing the Transparent, Effective and Accountable Government (TEAG) initiative in India. It recommends that TEAG: 1) Focus on strengthening relationships to give marginalized groups a voice in decision-making, help define service agreements, and empower people to monitor providers; 2) Encourage grantees to implement pilot accountability projects rather than just research; 3) Create a practitioner network to build governance reform support.

1. Transparent, Effective and Accountable Government
TEAG, India (2009-2013)
Initiative Assessment New Delhi Office
Summer, 2013
Recommendations:
1) Focus TEAG in strengthening three key relationships in the service delivery
chain: i) grant voice and representation to the marginalized in decision-making
processes, ii) help policymakers to better define and enforce the terms of service
provision agreements, and iii) empower poor people as clients of public services
so they can monitor providers, demand better quality and denounce corruption.
2) Encourage grantees to evolve their work from research and advocacy efforts (63%
of the portfolio) to the implementation of pilot projects aimed to make public
resources allocations more just and the delivery of education, health, and basic
services (water, electricity and sanitation) more effective.
3) Create momentum and build support for governance reform by building a
network of accountability practitioners throughout India.
1. Development and Governance in India
In only 15 years, the Indian economy more than doubled its size—from a GDP per
capita of $400 (1997) to $1,500 (2011) and, as a consequence, public revenues
available for development grew nearly ten-fold over the period. Paradoxically,
with more resources at hand, India did not perform better in terms of development
than other countries with lower levels of income. For instance, 43% of children
below five years in India are undernourished—which is the worst record among the
poorest 15 countries outside Sub-Saharan Africa (where the average is 30%).1
1
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, Haiti, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Moldova, Nepal, Pakistan,
Papua New Guinea, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Yemen.
To: Kavita N. Ramdas, Regional Office Representative
From: Jaime Archundia, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
Subject: Enhancing the impact of the TEAG initiative for accountability in India.
Date: August 14, 2013.

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Why sustained economic growth has alleviated too little poverty? The
main hypothesis is that there is a democratic governance deficit. This means that
Indian institutions are not being responsive to the needs of ordinary citizens,
including the poor, and thus they are not promoting equitable and sustainable
development. These institutions are failing to articulate all citizens’ interests and
demands. As a consequence, policymaking remains insulated from pressures for
redistribution and social exclusion exacerbates the sharp disparities that divide
the country. As long as the wealthiest population rely on private arrangements to
obtain basic services like education and health, the rest are deprived from them or
depend on the dismal services provided by the state.
The democratic governance deficit entails four problems for delivering
public services to the poor in India. First, social exclusion translates into small
budget allocations for public services aimed to the poor. Second, lack of
accountability mechanisms and corruption increase the prevalence of patronage
and leakages in the flow of public resources to service providers. Third, frontline
service providers lack incentives to provide good quality services to the poor—as
the poor will probably never complain or will never be heard. Fourth, there is a
lack of demand for better services by marginalized people, as they do not have
voice in decision-making processes.
To break the vicious cycle of exclusion and entrenched inequalities, the
Ford Foundation—along with other donors and international aid agencies—can help
Indian civil society to open up the governance process to make it more inclusive
and accountable. Such an approach will require to strengthen three key
relationships in the service delivery chain: 1) Help open the political process to
the participation of poor and marginalized groups through formal (elections) and

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informal mechanisms (advocacy groups, public information campaigns). 2) Help
policymakers to better define and enforce the terms of service provision
agreements. And 3) help empower poor people as clients, so they can demand
quality services and monitor providers.
2. TEAG Global Framework
The TEAG global approach is centered in expanding participation and
inclusiveness for the poor and marginalized in the decision-making processes for
the allocation of public resources. As this approach is only centered in addressing
the first problem that the democratic governance deficit imposes to service
delivery (unjust public resources allocation) it overlooks the other three.
Consequently, to maximize the impact of TEAG for the social change goal of
reducing poverty and inequality through more inclusive governance, the Indian
version of this initiative should not only focus on strengthening accountability in
the allocation of public resources. TEAG should focus on how these resources are
transformed into public services and, most importantly, on developing capacities
within the most deprived population so they can assess the quality of these
services and exercise accountability.
3. TEAG-India Portfolio Analysis (2009-2013) and future trends
TEAG grants account for USD $6.2 million and 16% of the governance
portfolio in the New Delhi Ford Foundation Office. From 2009 to 2013 there have
been 32 grants (19 approved and active, 11 closed and 2 rescinded), 68% of them
were focused on strengthening the three key accountability relationships
mentioned in section 1, 25% were focused on doing general research on

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accountability, and 6% were collaboration commitments. Budget analysis (9) and
the social monitoring of public schemes (7) are the two most recurrent
mechanisms for exercising accountability in the TEAG initiative.
However, the TEAG is a young portfolio. Grants are in the first phases of
the development of an intervention: 63% are conducting research and advocacy
(and it is not clear if they will evolve their projects into an implementable pilot),
while 34% are implementing projects on the field and only 3% are scaling them.
In almost five years, the initiative has helped to consolidate specialized
research hubs on transparency and accountability—such as Accountability
Initiative (AI), Parliamentary Research Service (PRS), Center for Budget,
Governance and Accountability (CBGA), Society for Participatory Research in Asia
(PRIA). TEAG has also helped to establish anchor organizations focused on budget
analysis and public resources allocation; these NGOs have been expanding their
job by training local organizations and creating a network with them. The initiative
has also been successful in building capacity at the local level with community
leaders and grassroots organizations to audit the delivery of public services.
On the other side of the coin, the TEAG has not achieved to guide the
accountability debate into issues of institutional design and administrative
reforms to improve service delivery—which remains over centralized and riddled
with inefficiencies. Research from grantees also shows that focusing only in public
resources allocation, as the TEAG global framework suggests, does not have an
effect in the improvement of public services to the poor—for instance, there is no
correlation between an increase in budgetary allocations in education with
learning levels (Accountability Initiative, PAISA, 2011).

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There is still work to do for the TEAG to increase collaboration between
grantees with local, state and national governments, and to help develop local
governance institutions. A future agenda for the TEAG should consider the
following areas of opportunity:
1) Continue building leadership and capacity at the grassroots level for
citizens (especially from poor and marginalized groups) to exercise
accountability for the delivery of basic public services (education, health,
nutrition, water, sanitation, electricity).
2) Promote partnerships with international organizations (WB, UN, etc.),
national and local governments, and grassroots organizations to: a)
implement systematically accountability tools, b) improve the capacity for
delivery and the quality of public services.
3) Elicit the implementation of pilots, accountability tools and best practices
from grantees that have been conducting research in the last years.
4) Encourage the use of Information and Communications Technology
mechanisms (such as cell phones, SMS messages, social networks) to spread
the use of accountability tools and enhance its effectiveness.
5) Support grantees working on strengthening the capacity of local
governance institutions, especially in the urban setting where there is a
lack of institutionalized mechanisms.
6) Promote research and debate on institutional design for improving service
delivery, as well as advocacy for Governance Reform.

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7) Promote the interaction among TEAG grantees working on accountability,
through seminars and workshops, for collective reflection and to build a
community of practitioners that can help to build support for reforms.
Practical implications for transforming the relationship with grantees:
1) Grantees who have been conducting research for the last 4 years are
expected to evolve their projects into implementable pilots if they want
to continue having support from the Ford Foundation in the future.
• The implementation of an open governance / accountability project
requires specific skills from organizations (planning, management,
budgeting, evaluation, etc.) in comparison to doing only research.
• This requirement will induce grantees to evolve and invest in their
own development as anchor organizations working on accountability.
In the long run it will help create a critical mass of NGOs on
governance issues.
• Interventions and pilots will be prioritized over purely research
projects.
2) Research grants must be tied with a commitment from the grantee to
evolve the research into a pilot or implementable project.
3) Research on accountability should be focused on how to improve public
resources allocation and service delivery in education, health, nutrition,
water, electricity and sanitation for the poor and marginalized.