Citizen Engagement in Public Health Service Delivery: From Collaboration to Accountability

Abstract

Poor service delivery, especially in the developing world, has been a major concern for both policymakers and scholars over the past four decades. More recently, international organisations have stressed the need to improve the provision of basic services. The World Development Report 2004 is devoted to ‘making services work for poor people’. It argues that services are failing in access, in quantity, and in quality (World Bank, 2003). Also, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) recognise that improving the provision of services is one of the key measures to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These organisations urge governments of developing countries to focus their attention on the provision of basic services such as health (Stein and Tommasi, 2008; WHO, 2000, 2005; World Bank, 1993). Healthcare is at the centre of the development agenda, while three out of the eight MDGs are directly related to health: to reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases (UN 2000).