The accountability mapping and dashboard revealed the relevance and importance of such research and tools in the MENA context, this finding was confirmed through the different consultations engaged with regional CSOs and hub members during the focus groups and interviews. The idea of an innovative and scalable dashboard is providing CSOs and citizens in the MENA with immediate interactive access to relevant, trustworthy, objective information about the implementation status of different local and public policies starting with Morocco and Tunisia for this first phase and with a plan to scaling it to other countries in the region in the next phase.
Results
A toolkit on participatory local governance Development of a MENA accountability mapping study report; Mapping of twenty-eight (28) initiatives and platforms working on accountability in the region through online interviews and focus groups; Development of an evidence-based accountability dashboard for the evaluation of public policies in the MENA region
Challenges
Social accountability initiatives and solutions in the MENA region are increasingly expected to facilitate positive social development efforts such as citizen engagement, access to information, local governance, and social inclusion. Through CSOs and citizen-led social accountability, societies can work on monitoring government, exposing failure and corruption, empowering marginalized groups, and ensuring that national and local governments respond to the concerns of the people. However, exactly through which mechanisms this is expected to take place and to be activated. As technology offers wide possibilities for solutions prototyping, the MENA Hub decided to undertake the development of a platform dedicated to the measurement and objective tracking of public policies in the MENA region using social accountability.
Why is this innovative
An Accountability dashboard was developed to accommodate all the themes of accountability that CSOs in the MENA are facing. SimSim recruited a developer/consultant that developed a general dashboard that will be tailored to measure different social accountability themes. The development of the tool was based on a mapping of current tools available in the MENA and an assessment of potential features to be developed within the MENA dashboard. This tool is developed to accommodate all the themes of accountability that CSOs in the MENA are facing. The dashboard will observe the work of public policies, municipalities throughout their mandate and will allow the public to give their opinions on the projects to influence the decisions.
Other tools
Innovative platform to measure different social accountability themes.