Bridging the Malnutrition Gap with Social Audits and Community Participation

There is an urgent need to increase coverage of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) particularly in Madhya Pradesh and to overcome governance failures, such as staff absenteeism, leakage of funds and supplies and false reporting of coverage. By increasing community participation, ownership of the scheme, and improving programme oversight, social audits can result in increased coverage as well as better accountability among service?providers and the relevant line departments. The bulk of experience with social audits comes from implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), which mandates that social audits be conducted prior to fund release. There is also some experience of using social audits for ICDS in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. This article examines the experiences from those two states and draws lessons for its application in states such as Madhya Pradesh.