Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chapter of Pakistan Social Accountability Network (PSAN) launched in Mardan

Civil society organizations from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa gathered in Mardan to formally launch the KPK Chapter of ‘Pakistan Social Accountability Network (PSAN)’, here on Thursday.

Pakistan Social Accountability Network (PSAN) is a SDPI initiative and network of organizations promoting social accountability at all tiers of the government to ensure accountability, good governance, and provision of effective and efficient public service delivery to the masses.

The event was attended by large number of civil society organizations based in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa such as STEP, SABAWON, PRESENT, Saiban, CRDO, FDF, RDP, Idea, IDBA, HumanAid, HBO, CESSD and CDC Swat.

Gulbaz Ali Khan, Senior Research Associate, SDPI explained the concept of social accountability to the participants. Social accountability, he said, is an approach towards building accountability that relies on civic engagement, in which ordinary citizens and civil society organizations become part of monitoring of accountability process directly. He also mentioned some of the tools and mechanisms employed to ensure social accountability including Citizen Report Cards, Participatory Budgeting, Community Score Cards, Citizen Charts, Public Expenditure Tracking, Social Audits and People’s Right to Information Act. He said that social accountability initiative is meant to achieve the broader goals of reducing poverty, increasing the effectiveness of development works and to empower the marginalized sections of society.

Speaking on the occasion, Altaf Ahmad of IRSP apprised the participants about the work of IRSP and some of its achievements in implementing various interventions including social accountability tools.

At the end participants of the meeting announced formal launching of the network. It was also decided that provincial secretariat of the network would be based in Mardan and hosted by IRSP.