20 get more or less allocations), and budget implementation (whether the allocations translated into better services or outcomes) appears to be almost entirely missing.

There _is_ evidence on a specific type of budget information which was pioneered in the education sector in Uganda. Purposefully designed survey instruments—named the Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS)—were used to measure discrepancies between budget allocations to schools in Uganda, and what actually reached the schools (Reinikka and Svensson, 2004). One study argues that the publication in mass media of estimated “leakage” in the flow of funds led to dramatic improvements, with most of the intended funds reaching the schools subsequent to the information campaign (Reinikka and Svensson, 2005). In this argument, accountability for the flow of funds improved because of addressing information gaps among parents in schools, and thus enabling them to exercise their client power _vis a vis_ district authorities responsible for transferring funds to schools.

Following the celebrated success of the Uganda case there has been a proliferation of PETS activities, and external investments in strengthening the capacity of civil society organizations to undertake such surveys to uncover and publicize “leakage” and thereby stem it. More qualitative evaluations of these efforts suggest that they can be frequently successful in getting the funds to reach the intended destinations, although to a lesser degree than the estimates in Uganda (McGee and Gaventa, 2010).

However, alternate arguments about the drivers of success in the Uganda case indicate that the client-power channel was only part of the story. Hubbard (2007) examines larger changes in school funding policies in the Ugandan Ministry of Education, and suggests that the information that activated client-power may have been only one element in increasing the amount of resources available in schools; that other, perhaps larger, elements consisted of strengthening of the compact between the Ministry and the districts following President Museveni’s 1996 election campaign in which free and universal primary education was a prominent agenda. This argument thus suggests that pressures working through the politics relationship led to a greater focus on education funding and to a better compact for education services. The role played by client power was a complement to changing political incentives within the state.

Are there other interventions that could enable civil society to influence the politics relationship to demand stronger changes in the compact? For example, the school grants covered by the PETS in Uganda are estimated to be a much smaller proportion of total government spending on education compared to teacher salaries (Hubbard, 2007). Other work on public education spending, and on the political economy of teacher management as a manifestation of clientelism, suggests that the compact with teachers is especially weak because citizens’ demand from politicians for quality education services is not sufficiently strong. This takes us to evidence on information and communication campaigns to mobilize voters around broad public interest policies.