Unintended Consequences of Community-Based Monitoring Systems: Lessons from an HIV Prevention Intervention for Sex Workers in South India

Biradavolu, Monica; Blankenship, Kim M.; George, Anne; Dhungana, Nimesh

doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.09.026

Cited by 17 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Rather, they had the goal of better understanding the social context that was shaping a variety of practices in which women engaged and, thus, covered a broad range of topics. Finally, qualitative research conducted throughout the study period indicates that women sex workers in the area readily offered critiques of the intervention and discussed the challenges in distribution and use of condoms (see Biradavolu et al 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender and Sexual Practice in Structural Context: Condom Use among Women Doing Sex Work in Southern India

Danner

Fort²,

Blankenship

2018

Gender & Society

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condom use among Women doing sex Work in southern india Gay younG american university, uSa Mona j. E. DannEr old Dominion university, uSa Lucía fort Independent Gender & Development consultant, uSa KIM M. BLanKEnShIp american university, uSa In this study, we elaborate connections among gender, structure, and practice to suggest how social structural relations shape social sexual practice and, in the process, reshape gender relations. using survey data from a study of a community mobilization intervention, we investigate the connection between institutional arrangements and condom use practice in sexual encounters with commercial clients and intimate partners among 410 women engaged in sex trade in a semiurban town in southern India. Multinomial logistic regression analysis uncovers the effects of 16 measures of gendered structural relations in three contexts-livelihood resources, household circumstances, and community mobilization intervention priorities. We compare women who practice either consistent or inconsistent condom use with both clients and partners with a reference group of women who practice consistent condom use with clients but not with partners. results reveal the importance of household and community relations for consistent safer sex practice over and above the organization of sex trade. our analysis advances gender theory in two interrelated ways: We contribute to gender theorizing in the implementation of health AUTHORS' NOTE: this work was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation (BMGf) (Grant no. opp30183; pI K. Blankenship). the views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect official policy or position of BMGf. correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Gay young, american university,

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender and Sexual Practice in Structural Context: Condom Use among Women Doing Sex Work in Southern India

Danner

Fort²,

Blankenship

2018

Gender & Society

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“…This article joins a nascent body of scholarship calling attention to potential drawbacks of anticorruption initiatives for building high-quality bureaucracies (e.g., Biradavolu et al 2015;Wang 2022). As Toral (2019) shows, anticorruption initiatives can motivate outgoing mayors to dismiss experienced bureaucrats as a way of avoiding potential prosecution by cleaning the accounts, leading to temporary reductions in bureaucratic performance.…”

Section: Bureaucratic Capacity and Accountabilitymentioning

confidence: 96%

Outsourcing Bureaucracy to Evade Accountability: How Public Servants Build Shadow State Capacity

Rich

2022

Am Polit Sci Rev

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The solution to weak bureaucratic capacity in developing countries is often presumed to be more accountability. This paper shows how accountability initiatives, intended to reduce corruption, can actually hinder the development of capable government agencies by making it harder for directors to recruit experts and spend their budgets. It further highlights a common way public servants escape the accountability rules that limit their effectiveness: outsourcing bureaucracies to nonstate organizations. This practice of outsourcing bureaucracy to avoid accountability rules creates what I call “shadow” state capacity and, paradoxically, it may help explain “pockets of effectiveness” among government social programs in developing countries. Drawing on in-depth interviews and descriptive statistics, I show how outsourcing was a critical factor in producing two of Brazil’s most vaunted social sector programs. However, I also suggest that outsourcing bureaucracy may ultimately limit state capacity, even if it helps to build capable programs in the short run.

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“…Scholars have argued that the unequal nature of partnerships within the aid sector often compels aidrecipient southern NGOs to privilege upward accountability to northern donors, at the cost of both learnings from interventions and downward accountability to communities they claim to serve (Ebrahim, 2005;Makuwira, 2006). Pressures to conform to a rigid reporting, monitoring and evaluation of aid interventions along specific indicators and measures have further reproduced power inequalities between northern and southern aid actors (Biradavolu, Blankenship, George, & Dhungana, 2015;O'Connor, Brisson-Boivin, & Ilcan, 2014), eroding local actors' ability to pursue "locally-intelligent means of programme improvement" (Shukla, Teedon, & Cornish, 2016, p. 14).…”

Section: Politics Of Social Accountabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Doing Civil Society-Driven Social Accountability in a Disaster Context: Evidence from Post-Earthquake Nepal

Dhungana

2020

PaG

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While accountability has gained significant traction within the contemporary discourse on disaster governance, what it means and takes to be ‘doing accountability’ in promoting democratic governance of disasters remain scantly understood.<em> </em>Using the concept of social accountability and drawing on an ethnographic case study of a civil society-led accountability campaign in post-earthquake Nepal (the Mobile Citizen Help Desk, or MCHD), this article shows how MCHD sought to amplify local voices regarding failures in aid delivery and expanded opportunities for dialogue between disaster-affected communities and local powerholders. It highlights the potential of such initiative in safeguarding and promoting the rights of disaster-affected communities, while also helping overcome the post-disaster environment of mistrust, unfounded allegations and power inequalities. The article also draws attention to the challenges facing such an initiative. It shows that the effectiveness of such efforts in translating citizens’ voices into state response was undermined by: (i) its incorporation into a donor-driven humanitarian accountability initiative, in which generating and reporting feedback to donors proved more pressing than amplifying citizen voice; and (ii) unclear structures of governance at the local level of service delivery, which impeded the civil society actors’ aim to engage with ‘the right authority.’ The article draws attention to the political potential of social accountability in a post-disaster context, while also raising caution that such activism is unlikely to succeed in holding powerholders to account in the absence of supportive national bureaucratic and international aid structures.

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Unintended Consequences of Community-Based Monitoring Systems: Lessons from an HIV Prevention Intervention for Sex Workers in South India

Cited by 17 publications

References 19 publications

Gender and Sexual Practice in Structural Context: Condom Use among Women Doing Sex Work in Southern India

Gender and Sexual Practice in Structural Context: Condom Use among Women Doing Sex Work in Southern India

Outsourcing Bureaucracy to Evade Accountability: How Public Servants Build Shadow State Capacity

Doing Civil Society-Driven Social Accountability in a Disaster Context: Evidence from Post-Earthquake Nepal

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