A Study of Stakeholder Engagement in Social Audit

Abstract

The public and social organisations increasingly demand clarity and liability in most civil matters. It is hence ethically necessary to develop an institutional structure and a system towards sustainable transparency and accountability. Social Audit is a public assembly where all the details of a project are scrutinized. It is a way of measuring, understanding and reporting an organization’s societal and moral performance. It provides the most significant link between oral and written validation. Social Audits facilitate a transparent control and monitoring mechanism and offer a means of securing accountability of the stakeholders of public sector programmes. The various stakeholders taking part in such audits are representatives from government organisations, non-governmental organisations, the public and their elected representatives.

Keywords: Social Audit, Panchayat Raj, Gram Sabha, Community Organisation