How Voice and Accountability Happen in Different Contexts Citizen Voice and State Accountability: towards Theories of Change That Embrace Contextual Dynamics

ODI is the UK's leading independent think tank on international development and humanitarian issues. ODI Project Briefings provide a focused and specialised summary of a project, a country study or regional analysis. Project Briefing T he development industry is increasingly pushing practitioners to achieve results, and to do better in demonstrating what works, what does not, and explaining why. There is a growing interest in going beyond the measurement of results to being able to understand the basis for success or failure. Consequently, the development of explicit theories of change (ToCs) is starting to be viewed as central to this process, as a key part of what constitutes 'rigour' in impact evaluations. These ToCs explain the central processes or drivers that generate change for individuals, groups or communities (Funnell and Rogers, 2011). Citizen voice and accountability (CV&A) project interventions produce and reproduce diverse outcomes that are not amenable to linear models of ToCs. These projects often involve a wide range of actors who pursue their aims according to different incentives and interests. In neo-patrimonial contexts, social actors are embedded in a complex web of formal and informal interactions that are difficult to disentangle and explain. This complexity increases when multiple external incentives, interests and influences are taken into account. This paper uses a critical analysis of CV&A cases from the Mwananchi Governance and Transparency Fund (GTF) programme to examine how citizen voice and accountability happens in different governance contexts. The GTF is a one-off funding mechanism created by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) as part of its implementation of the 2006 White Paper 'Making Governance Work for Poor People'. The ODI GTF works in six African coun-The analytical framework used in this paper draws on the well-known tools of outcome mapping (OM) and political economy analysis (PEA). It provides a new way to develop ToCs to navigate the context-dependent dynamics of citizen engagement and state accountability in the pursuit of results. Context: everyday governance Evaluations of CV&A projects consider the understanding of context to be one of the core building blocks of success. This implies that any useful ToC must be informed by an understanding of how a particular context shapes interactions between state and citizens. However, the experience of the Mwananchi programme suggests that initial contextual analysis – obtained through such tools as the World Governance Assessment (WGA) and Strategic Governance and Anti-Corruption Assessment (SCAGA) – fails …