Participation of beneficiaries in the monitoring of public services is increasingly seen as key to improving their efficiency. In India, the current government flagship program on universal primary education organizes community members, specifically locally elected leaders and parents of...

"There is a growing belief in development policy circles that participation by local communities in basic service delivery can promote development outcomes. A central plank of public policy for improving primary education services in India is the participation of village education committees...

Community-based targeting, in which communities allocate social assistance using local information about who is poor, in experimental settings leads to nuanced allocations that reflect local concepts of poverty. What happens when it is scaled up, by either by making the stakes high, or by...