Community monitoring interventions to curb corruption and increase access and quality of service delivery in low‐and middle‐income countries
Citation: Molina E, Carella L, Pacheco A, et al. Community monitoring interventions to curb corruption and increase access and quality of service delivery in low‐and middle‐income countries: a systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews 2016; 12(1): 1-204
What is this: During a crisis like COVID-19, when countries resort to special measures to help prevent the spread of the virus and manage the pandemic, misinformation or the inappropriate use of emergency funds could divert valuable resources from people who need these most.
In this Campbell systematic review, the authors searched for research assessing the effects of community monitoring interventions on corruption and access, and quality of service delivery. They did not restrict by language of publication and did their search in November 2013. They included 15 studies, which were from Asia (7 studies), Africa (6) and Latin America (2). These evaluated interventions in the education sector (9 studies), health (3), infrastructure (2) and employment promotion (1).
What was found: Community monitoring interventions were found to be effective in reducing corruption. They appear to be more effective in improving outcomes when they promote direct contact between citizens and providers or politicians, and when they include tools for citizens to monitor the performance of providers and politicians.
Community monitoring interventions were not found to be effective on school enrolments or dropouts.
No improvement was found in health service waiting times.
There is a need for adequate information and tools to assist citizens with community monitoring.