The Transparency and Accountability Program (TAP) strengthens the capacity of independent monitoring organizations (IMOs) in low- and middle-income countries to promote improvements in social sector public spending and better hold their governments accountable for expenditure decisions and actions. The core of TAP is a competitive small grants program that enables participating IMOs to complete original analytical and advocacy work on a specific topic in public expenditures in their country. The small grants program uses “learning by doing” activities to engage IMOs in budget analysis and to increase IMO interest, capacity, and expertise in social sector budget and implementation issues, emphasizing both immediate and long-term impacts on public expenditure policy and outcomes. TAP provides technical resources and training to support completion of the work and an opportunity for the organizations to share and learn from each other’s findings and methods. In addition, TAP helps IMOs forge concrete partnerships with other development stakeholders engaged in similar work and disseminates the work of the participating IMOs beyond their home countries to enhance their reputations at home and to create examples of good work for IMOs in other countries to emulate. Finally, an integral component of our program is the evaluation of supported IMOs and TAP itself to study the role that IMOs can play in increasing transparency and to provide guidance to stakeholders on how best to support these organizations.

Since its inception in 2006, TAP has supported 19 pieces of analytical and advocacy work by civil society organizations on topics including results-based budgeting initiatives, inefficiencies in the pharmaceutical supply chain in public health centers, and the incidence and causes of teacher absenteeism in primary schools. The work supported by TAP has resulted in products utilized by the public and NGOs to monitor service delivery in education and health as well as changes in education policy to improve the efficiency of public service delivery in Guatemala and Ghana. The first phase of TAP’s work culminated in three publications outlining an analytical framework that countries can use to improve accountability (How to Improve Governance), highlighting how donors and international institutions can support the demand for good governance (Lives in the Balance), and featuring the results, impact, and lessons learned from the first phase of the TAP grants program (Improving Government Performance from the Ground Up). TAP has recently entered its second phase of work, beginning with the awarding of 20 new grants in Asia and Africa for public expenditure tracking and absenteeism studies in health and education (starting June 2009).