Tanzania, by virtue of being a democratic country, and by virtue of being signatory to the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, is legally and constitutionally committed to the progressive realization of, among others, political and civil rights and socio‐economic rights to health‐care, education and social welfare within her available resources. So the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights commits her to the progressive realization within available resources of the rights to health, education, and social security, as well as the right to an adequate standard of living (food clothing and housing) and the continuous improvement of living conditions. The UN’s rights‐based framework opens up the potential for civic organizations and development activists to monitor compliance with the progressive realization of a broad range of political, civil and socio‐economic rights (CSA, 2008). Specifically, civic actors and interest groups can use the existence of international human rights standards to monitor whether the entitlements of rights‐holders at state level are being met by duty‐bearers, hence the need for Social Accountability Monitoring.

This report takes a closer look at the experience of Social Accountability Monitoring versus expenditure tracking and argues that its potentials may have been underestimated. It suggests that acceptance on the part of the public bodies for the implementation of SAM could be a major step towards unlocking most stalling processes hindering development in the face of the needful Tanzanian and most probably across the developing nations.