Aligning Actors for Learning : The Evolution of Social Accountability in the Dominican Republic’s Education Sector

The practice of social accountability has evolved since the 1990s. Today, we understand social accountability as a process that enables the inclusive participation and collective action of citizens and civil society organizations in public policy making and implementation so that state and service providers are responsive to citizens’ needs and held accountable. This evolution is illustrated through the work targeting the Dominican Republic’s education sector which includes a project funded by the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA) focused on citizen engagement in monitoring education service delivery. This GPSA note contends that what may have started as tool-based transparency and social accountability interventions that were isolated from the country’s education policy making evolved toward collaborative, problem-solving social accountability approaches. The most recent efforts integrated a focus on building synergies with education policy making and programing from the beginning.