Bottom-Up Transparency Initiatives to Reduce Corruption

Policy Context

Efforts to increase transparency frequently rely on a top-down approach, in which a policymaker demands information about how the government is delivering services in a particular sector. Bottom-up transparency interventions differ by offering citizens the opportunity to directly initiate efforts to investigate potential corruption, and ultimately improve public goods or services. The legal right to request information (RTI) is a federal policy in India (and other countries) that mandates timely response to citizen requests for government information.

Study Design

This pilot project sought to understand how increasing transparency through RTI requests of public service agencies affects the quality of services delivered. RTI requests were sent to officials working in health centers in the Indian state of Haryana, where staff absenteeism is a major problem. These requests aimed to increase officials’ perceived level of “bottom-up” monitoring, and hence reduce corruption.

RTI requests were sent to ~160 health centers, asking for a copy of the attendance records of staff working in the centers. The team then sent surveyors to manually count the number of staff in attendance.

Results and Policy Lessons

The median health center was recorded as having four staff present, though records show that the median center had eight staff. Eight health centers had no doctors present, and some centers were closed when surveyors arrived during working hours.

The pilot intervention provided proof-of-concept that collecting data on healthcare worker attendance is feasible, both through RTI requests and in person monitoring, and can be carried out independently from the Health Department. However, the results indicate that RTI requests may not match “ground truth” data, calling into question the potential limitations of accountability through this mechanism.