Tackling the Governance of Socially Inclusive Service Delivery

Despite conventions, laws and policies, service delivery in many countries remains poor and fails to reach socially excluded groups. With ‘supply side’ governance constraints often deemed intractable, many donors support ‘demand side’ accountability processes for better service delivery. When it comes to social and gender-based exclusion, the weaknesses of purely demand side accountability approaches become clear. This article draws on case study research in Nepal to examine social accountability processes that work on both sides of the supply--demand divide and consider their likely contribution to socially inclusive service delivery and to challenging deeper institutional norms that sustain social exclusion.