Effect of Social Accountability on Improving Service Delivery and Outcomes in the Public Sector in Uttar Pradesh, India

In several low and middle-income countries, Social Accountability (SA) interventions have been introduced as an innovative approach to governance, aiming to improve delivery of public services. These interventions typically include information provision to citizens regarding their rights/entitlements and local provider performance, and additionally, facilitation of community engagement with providers and officials. The state government of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and the Uttar Pradesh Health Systems Strengthening Project (UPHSSP) have identified 12 districts where the social accountability initiative will be introduced on a priority basis. This study focuses on interventions in 2 of these districts (Sultanpur and Fatehpur), to study mechanisms through which information and collective action lead to improved accountability and outcomes. Within the 2 districts, the study is implemented as a cluster randomized evaluation with 120 villages randomized into 2 treatment arms and one control arm. This study aims to: (a) measure the causal effect of SA interventions on key outcomes (health status, quality of service); (b) test the effectiveness of social networks based strategies to disseminate information for community engagement; and (c) study individuals' decisions to participate in collective action efforts in the context of social networks and information interventions. In addition to evaluating the impact of the SA interventions, the study aims to generate new knowledge on relative strengths of information seeding strategies, identifying those that maximize the spread of information through the village network, and subsequently estimate peer effects on participation decisions.