<title>Abstract</title> Strengthening ‘social accountability’ is emerging as a key strategy for improving public services and attaining the Millennium Development Goals. Yet current conceptualizations of social accountability have tended to focus on it as ‘mechanisms’ or ‘widgets’, a view which...

This paper reviews the literature on taxation of the informal economy, taking stock of key debates and drawing attention to recent innovations. Conventionally, the debate on whether to tax has frequently focused on the limited revenue potential, high cost of collection, and potentially adverse...

Summary Recent, "rights-based approaches" offer a promising route for bringing about social change. However, we have little experience with state-provided legally enforceable socio-economic rights. This paper examines one of the few examples of a legally granted socio-economic right--a limited...

In developing countries in particular, services are often delivered through unorthodox organisational arrangements that cannot simply be dismissed as relics of 'traditional' institutions, or as incomplete modern organisations. Some have emerged recently, and represent institutional adaptations...