• Reaching out to Other Countries
• Bangladesh
• Bolivia
  • Accountability reaches remote locations in Bolivia
  • ECB Bolivia expands membership and works on Accountability
  • ECB Bolivia tests Joint Needs Assessment Tool
• Horn of Africa
• Indonesia
• Niger
• What is an ECB Consortium?
• How did we select five ECB Consortia?
• What is a CEP?

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By Susan Romanski, Director of Programs, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) - Latin America Region

We are amidst beautiful rolling hills in the province of Chuquisaca in Bolivia, a 6 hour drive from the historic town of Sucre, in southern Bolivia.  In the small and remote community of San Blas, you will find the school, a health post, a community center, and a few homes. 

Accountability meeting attendees, San Blas Bolivia.

Photo © CRS 2011

Most families, of which there are about 100, live dispersed among the hills. San Blas holds regular community meetings that bring people in from all over the area.  On September 12, 2011, a community meeting took place which included a presentation from Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and partner Foundation Accion Cultural Loyola (ACLO) on accountability to beneficiaries.

Walter Carvallo (ACLO) and Jacqueline Soliz (CRS) shared the concept of accountability and discussed different ideas to ensure:

• That the community members could participate
• That CRS and ACLO are taking their program responsibilities seriously
• That the project is progressing as planned.  

The backdrop for their discussion was a laminated version of the project’s objectives and program indicators that ACLO had brought to the community at the start of the project. 

Discussing how the proposed information panel

could work, San Blas Bolivia. Photo © CRS 2011

During the meeting, the community agreed together:

• They would use a panel board to advertise information about the project and announce project news (see photo above)
• That half the panel space could be used to announce various community activities
• To have a suggestions box in which anyone could file any complaints, suggestions or commentary about the project or partner performance. 
• To keep a book to register any complaints, suggestions or comments that they would bring to the community meetings.

There were approximately 45 people who came to the meeting; from these the group selected the community members who would be in charge of the book, the panel and the suggestion box. It was decided that ACLO would collect the book and the notes from the suggestion box once a month to be analyzed for a response.

In such a remote place, it is nice to see that different initiatives are taking place to provide better accountability to community beneficiaries. If you're interested in accountability training for your staff or partners, please view and download our Good Enough Guide to Impact Measurement and Accountability (available in many languages).

For more information about our multi-agency collaboration work in Bolivia, please contact us info@ecbproject.org.