Enhancing Education Outcomes Through Social Accountability of Duty Bearer by Community Members

Citizen Voice and Action (CVA) is one form of social accountability founded on the human rights-based approach to development. The World Bank (2004) defines social accountability as actions and mechanisms beyond voting that citizens can use to hold the state accountable and actions on government, civil society, media, and other societal actors promoting or facilitating these efforts. The Bank further argues that social accountability is essentially about government officials accounting for their actions to citizens.

World Vision Zambia implements Citizen Voice and Action to improve education service delivery in its programming. Citizen Voice and Action is a community-level social accountability model that allows for dialogue between communities and government, including all policymakers, to improve services in sectors like education, health care, water supply, sanitation, and livelihoods, which impact the lives of children, families and communities daily. Since its inception, the CVA has been implemented in over 40 districts across all the ten provinces with World Vision Zambia's Programme Areas.