Social Accountability and Service Delivery: Experimental Evidence from Uganda
Corruption is increasingly being targeted as one of the major reasons for service delivery failures and general efficiency loss for societies. We present results from a randomized evaluation of a community based anti-corruption training in Uganda implemented by the government of Uganda and in coordination with a large community driven development program. From a sample of 941 communities across the north of the country, we randomly selected 627 to receive a six-day training on identifying and reporting mismanagement of programs being implemented in these communities. The study is unique in size, geographic distribution and intensity of the program. We also employ a novel data collection to determine the impact of the program on service delivery, community participation and legitimacy of government. We find that the program had a modest impact on project quality by 0.12 standard deviations. The effect appears to come mostly from livestock projects, specifically a reduction in deaths of animals and increases in overall animal health. In total, the training appears to have increased the number of animals in communities by 0.27 heads of cattle, or 13%. We explore the mechanisms for these impacts and find no effects on the procedures communities used to procure animals, but large positive effects on whether community members report monitoring projects themselves and complaining of problems to government. We also find significant decreases in whether people trust their community leaders and district government. The results suggest that well-targeted community monitoring trainings can improve service delivery.