1. Have communication channels for employees at various levels to participate in ideation

2. Do not criticise any ideas submitted. Have a transparent method of evaluating ideas submitted

3. Acknowledge and appreciate the value of ideas submitted.

4. Allow projects / initiatives to be led by employees with support from both juniors and seniors

5. Give credit to others for success. Allow juniors to enjoy the attention and credit for success. Celebrate the contribution of your team / organisation members' contributions.

6. Create a forum where everyone has a chance to contribute to the growth of the institution by sharing ideas / suggestions.

7. Encourage volunteering by staff members on new organisational initiatives.

These are some suggestions. All of them need not be practiced at once. Any initiative should be customised to organisational needs aligning to cultural and social requirements. I hope these will give you some ideas to get started. Practice carefully and in a measured manner. Ensure that only initiatives that can be sustained be begun, especially when trying any of the above.

Good Luck with your efforts

I think the best strategy would be to let the citizens take hold of their development process, let ideas come from them and the leaders then work to put citizens' ideas into practice. It should be such ideas, views and perspectives by which leaders should be held accountable. I personally believe that going down to people and listening to them remains the best way of improving participation and possibly the surest way of holding leaders to account just in case they do not heed. Decentralisation is nothing if it does not give citizens power to own the development process.

Here is some of my research on this question:

"Institutional Design and the Accountability Paradox: A Case Study of Aboriginal Accountability Regimes in Canada." (With Zac Spicer and Rob Leone). Canadian Public Administration Vol. 55 No. 1, March pp. 69-90.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1754-7121.2012.00206.x/abstract

2012. "Responding to Policy Change from Above: Municipal Accountability and Transparency Regimes in Ontario." (With Rob Leone and Zac Spicer). Journal of Canadian Studies. Vol. 46 No. 1, Winter pp. 112-137.

https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/journal_of_canadian_studies/v046/46.1.alcantara.html

Thank you soo much for your wonderful ideas 

From an African perspective and with particular focus on local governance decentralization we have applied the four Ps + C of participation (Planning, Priority setting, Producing and Paying + Consumption.(Kauzya, 2003). Basically it has been observed participation is very high at product consumption level.  Efforts to inculcate a sense of ownership at planning level should be strengthened.  We have applied community based planning approaches to motivate ownership at planning and priority setting. Results have been varied due to the mindsets which have been tuned towards dependency. The above should be applied in an environment of institutional strengthening or capacity building at local level. Local level institutions are the pillars of decentralization and they are the medium through which citizen participation, as Japhace says above "take hold of the development process" can be improved.

In our experience with devolution or decentralization we saw that:

1) you have to prepare them in both knowledge and skills of governance (Including the community)

2)transparency of fund sharing

3) Assure continous technical support, financial support if really necessary; include performance monitoring (re-centralize if it is not working)

4) Continue to work with them as part of a team

What is meant by decentralisation? It can easily become un-authentic in the eyes of many. I decentralise to you means that I can recentralise again. The word will make many suspicious. Many studies reveal that such exercises are seem as not changing power relations. 

I believe strongly that the whole idea of decentralization is to improve local service delivery for the quality of life for the local people. This has increased local government discretion leading to local corruption making the poor to suffer the consequences. The whole concept of participation and accountability is to reduce corruption to improve the quality of life of the people since corruption cannot be completely eradicate, so some scholars including the world bank claim. To reduce it therefore, I would recommend the application of Klitgaard's formula ( inversely I mean); Corruption=Monopoly+Discretion-Accountability. Again the concepts of Societal/social accountability and that of Goetz and Jenkins " diagonal accountability. Hope it helps

Great points, thanks to you all

Re: "I believe strongly that the whole idea of decentralization is to improve local service delivery for the quality of life for the local people.". It seems to me that in some situations (such as corruption that is concentrated at local level) improved service delivery will  not follow from decentralisation. In some ways the idea is simply one of the ongoing movements of ideas between various poles of dualities - recentralise, decentralise, compromise, repeat. Which is why it encourages people to believe that it is about improving welfare, when it is as much to do with the inner logic of policy government. 

A thoughful summary of the topic is found in 

Azfar, O., S. Kahkonen, A. Lanyi, P. Meagher and D. Rutherford (1999). Decentralization, Governance and Public Services: The Impact Of Institutional Arrangements. IRIS Working Paper (mimeo): 35.

Decentralization is often considered a "mixed bag" or double-edged sword...

proponents point to the advantages of "moving the government closer to the people" (World Bank /WDR 1993) - which, in theory, keeps officials on their toes, allows citizens to monitor public performance, and offers people a choice of different service/tax packages.

Supporting Literature includes

Hirschman, A. O. (1970). Exit, Voice, and Loyalty : Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press.

Paul, S. (1992). "Accountability in Public Services: Exit, Voice and Control." World Development 20(7): 1047-1060.

Tiebout, C. (1956). "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures." The Journal of Political Economy 64(5): 416-424. (people vote with their feet for the best service/tax packages)

Skeptics, on the other hand, point to

a) higher elite capture (due to less central oversight and more local discretion)  

b) lack of local government capacity 

c) loss of economy of scale effects (hence, loss of potential welfare gains)

Critical aspects are well described in:

Prud'homme, R. (1995). "The dangers of decentralisation." World Bank Research Observer 10(2): 201-220.

Tanzi, V. (2001). Pitfalls on the Road to Fiscal Decentralization. Washington DC, Global Policy Paper No. 19, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Bardhan, P. and D. Mookherjee (2005). Decentralization and Local Governments in Developing Countries: A Comparative Perspective. Cambridge, MIT Press

Thus, to improve accountability and participation - I believe one has to thoroughly understand the political economy (actors, powers, interests, incentives, drivers of action) in a given location... then, based on the different potential pros and cons (as outlined above), a thoughtful approach can be identified 

Hope this helps,

Best wishes

Christian 

How, pray, does one know, other than through some inner sense or social signalling, when one has been able to "thoroughly understand the political economy"? This seems to be as long as a piece of string. Just because an approach is "thoughtful" does not mean that it is a wise guide to action. Not least as there are many such approaches, and there is no sound guide to choosing between them. Though 'The Prince may Decide for Us', of course. 

 Re: "How, pray, does one know"...

Admittedly, understanding the workings of the political economy is perhaps an uphill task. Point well taken. Yet, attaining a better understanding (by means of observation, interviews, surveys, and secondary sources) of central  actors, powers, and interests will likely place us in a better position to describe, assess, and advise...

This, arguably, seem all the more important in view of the "under-contextualized" donor support programs that seek to enhance societal "participation" and "accountability"- and do so, with some "best practices" and OECD blueprints in mind...  (I have been down this road - mea culpa -  advising  Indonesian district governments and drawing under-contextualized references to European experiences)

Well yes!

Nobel winner Elinor Ostrom "Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems", American Economic Review: Vol. 100 No. 3 (June 2010) is probably good place to start.

Applying fund voting, see my ebooks Democracy with sequential choice and fund voting and Democracy with sequential choice and fund voting. Instructions, promotes participation and accountability, implying responsible decentraiization of influence.

You might wish to look at "Localizing Development : Does Participation Work?" by Mansuri and Rao (World Bank, 2013). The report presents a rigorous (and self-critical) review of World Bank experiences, acknowledging that it is hard to generate participation and accountability in places where it does not organically exist. In the preface, Martin Ravallion succinctly summarizes the "best chance" to achieve "induced" accountability in a decentralized context as a “sandwich” formed by support from an effective central state and bottom-up civic action.

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/11859

in India, in order to increase local people participation in afforestation, government develop a concept called Joint Forest Management.

Well! all sounds well, but the missing perspective is not the accountability, responsiveness, or the limitation of powers of the local governments. in a developing+weak state context, the informal governance mechanisms, their interaction/influence on the local government officials, and people's perception of the governance are significant factors to be taken into account. an Intensive case study (Gerring, 2004) with some broad indicators is the best way forward to view or review any strategy of decentralization.

These readings may be helpful

Keefer, Philip, and Stephen Knack. "Social capital, social norms and the new institutional economics." Handbook of new institutional economics. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2008. 701-725.

Faguet, Jean-Paul, Fox, Ashley M. and Poeschl, Caroline (2014) Does decentralization strengthen or weaken the state? Authority and social learning in a supple state. Working Paper. Retreaved from: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/60631/

Faguet, Jean-Paul. (2004). "Does decentralization increase government responsiveness to local needs?: Evidence from Bolivia." Journal of public economics, Vol. 88, No.3,  867-893.

Faguet, Jean-Paul. (2014). "Decentralization and governance." World Development, Vol.53, 2-13.

Meagher, Kate. (2012). "The Strength of Weak States? Non‐State Security Forces and Hybrid Governance in Africa." Development and Change, Vol.  43, No.5, 1073-1101.

Dear Nana,

Very good references and thought processes so far. My inputs are as below:

1. There are 'native' ingredients to participation in almost all societies across the world. In India for example, a 'Panchayat' comprising of five elders from the community has been in existence for over 3000 years. The Panchayat has revenue/judicial powers over the local population and has been the backbone of Indian village life. Recognizing the merit of such a system, the Mughal and later British rulers left this system of local governance largely intact. After Independence, though government took a little time, Panchayats were formalized and incorporated as the third tier of government in India from 1993 on wards. The lesson for participation therefore is to find elements in local practice that would enhance acceptability. Christian Luebke's point about 'importing' European values to Indonesia needs to be understood in this light.

2. Accountability in governance parlance is proportional to the amount of financial independence that is given to local governance institutions. There are many case studies in India and SAARC countries where financial independence granted to Panchayats has resulted in development.

3. Keeping local participatory institutions outside the influence of political parties is an important point I would like to mention. Electoral considerations will otherwise incapacitate local institutions.

I have the following three threads on RG. They are related to your question. You may like to take a look:

 https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_do_we_resolve_the_dilemma_of_diversity_of_interests_between_local_groups_political_agenda_and_aid_agencies_for_community_development

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Democratic_devolution-is_this_impractical

https://www.researchgate.net/post/In_what_ways_can_citizen_participation_contribute_to_good_governance

Have a great day.

GREAT CONTRIBUTIONS. AM GRATEFUL TO EVERYONE.

Fund voting is an answer implying a new sense of decentralization. In fund voting the possibilities to influence are decentralized under rules which keep alive common concerns. The implications of fund voting in this connection are too drastic to be explained here, cfr. chapter III in Democracy by sequential choice and fund voting by Björn S. Stefánsson.