Development programmes are often designed in a top-down manner and are frequently undermined by poor design, inefficiency, and corruption, which, when combined with weak oversight institutions, leads to poor outcomes. In response, this proposal recommends institutionalizing participatory accountability mechanisms, such as social audits and community monitoring, that enable meaningful citizen participation in both the design and monitoring of programs, which have shown to improve awareness of entitlements, enhance the provision and uptake of services, reduce corruption and leakages, and empower people. Importantly, these mechanisms should not be treated as one-off exercises or outsourced to private actors. Instead, they should be embedded as fundamental parts of programmatic design and implementation and facilitated by regular state funding and independent public institutions, as evidenced under the erstwhile Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in India. This citizen “voice” in program design and evaluation requires state “teeth” to be effective, : independent institutions should be empowered to ensure grievance redressal, sanction officials, address administrative lapses, and investigate corruption, and deliberative public platforms at multiple levels should review findings and action-taken reports, to drive corrective action. This policy proposal is significant because it redistributes power towards those most affected by poverty and enhances the responsiveness of public systems. Over time, these processes reduce leakages, promote a shift from discretionary provisioning to entitlement-based delivery and strengthen demands for universal access to basic services.
