When Gerson Martínez became head of El Salvador’s Ministry of Public Works in 2009, the organization was notorious for corruption that contributed to poor-quality construction, unfinished projects, and frequent lawsuits. Working with a prominent nongovernmental organization (NGO) and industry representatives, Martínez introduced integrity pacts as monitoring mechanisms intended to prevent corruption. The agreements publicly committed officials and companies to reject bribery, collusion, and other corrupt practices and enabled NGOs to monitor bidding and construction. Although limited capacity and resistance from some midlevel ministry staff hindered the monitors’ work, integrity pacts focused the attention of both the government and the public on problems in major public works projects; and participants said the pacts helped deter corruption in those they covered. In 2012, integrity pacts became part of El Salvador’s Open Government Partnership action plan, in implicit recognition of the tool’s contribution to reform. As of August 2015, the ministry had signed 31 integrity pacts involving five projects worth a combined US$62 million. Although sustaining the initiative proved a challenge, integrity pacts served as a foundation for increased collaboration between government, civil society, and the private sector—and as a first step toward a new institutional culture at the Ministry of Public Works.

Maya Gainer drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in San Salvador in July 2015. Case published in October, 2015. This case study was funded by the Open Government Partnership.

In early 2008, Zubair Bhatti, administrative head of the Jhang district in Pakistan’s Punjab province, recognized the need to reduce petty corruption in the local civil service—a problem that plagued not only Punjab but also all of Pakistan. He began to contact citizens on their cell phones to learn about the quality of the service they had received. Those spot checks became the basis for a social audit system that spanned all 36 districts in Punjab by 2014. The provincial government outsourced much of the work to a call center, which surveyed citizens about their experiences with 16 different public services. The data from that call center helped district coordination officers identify poorly performing employees and branches, thereby enhancing the capability of the government to improve service delivery. By early 2014, the province was sending about 12,000 text messages daily to check on service quality. More than 400,000 citizens provided information between the beginning of the initiative and 2014. Known as the Citizen Feedback Monitoring Program, the Punjab’s social audit system became the template for similar innovations in other provinces and federal agencies in Pakistan.

Mohammad Omar Masud drafted this case based on interviews conducted in Punjab, Pakistan, in January and March 2014. Case published February 2015.

Note: This case study was previously titled "Calling the Public to Empower the State: Pakistan's Citizen Feedback Monitoring Program, 2008-2014."

In late 2009, following three decades of gradual economic and governance reform by Vietnam’s one-party government, three organizations came together to implement a social audit across the country. The Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI)—a joint policy project of the United Nations Development Programme, the Vietnamese nongovernmental organization the Center for Community Support and Development Studies, and the Communist Party–affiliated Vietnam Fatherland Front—aimed to draw information about citizen perspectives into decision making in Vietnam. It also sought to formulate quantitative measures of provincial performance and governance. Based on public surveys, PAPI aimed to provide a reliable picture of citizen experiences with provincial government along six dimensions: participation in government at local levels, transparency, vertical accountability, control of corruption, implementation of and adherence to public administrative procedures, and public service delivery. By 2011, PAPI was able to measure governance quality in all 63 provinces in Vietnam. The survey project represented the nation’s first large-scale effort to systematically gather information about citizens’ experiences with their local and provincial governments. It also led some provincial governments to create action plans that would improve the services citizens received and boost the rankings of those provincial governments in the index.

Rachel Jackson drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Hanoi in July 2014. Case published December 2014.

Associated Interview:  Jairo Acuña-Alfaro