Rights, Resources and the Politics of Accountability

Many conflicts in development are about struggles by the poor to hold the powerful to account and the rights and responsibilities of each. They reflect conflicts between the promotion of rights-based and market-based approaches to development which have enormous implications for efforts to tackle poverty. This book explores the range of ways in which the poor mobilise to claim their rights and demand accountability, and the exciting and imaginative strategies they use towards the state, the private sector, international institutions and within civil society itself. Overarching themes and key questions emerge about how and when the poor can improve the accountability of powerful actors in development for their actions and inactions.