Promoting Transparency and Accountability: The Role of SBCC in Governance

Good governance thrives on two principles: transparency and accountability. Without these, democracy becomes a hollow exercise where citizens vote but have no real power over how they are governed. In India, the Right to Information (RTI) Act of 2005 was a landmark step toward opening up government functioning to public scrutiny. But passing a law is only half the battle. The other half is making sure people know about it, understand it, and use it. This is where Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) enters the picture – as a strategic approach that goes beyond simply sharing information to actually shifting attitudes, norms, and behaviours around governance and civic participation.

What is SBCC and why does it matter for governance? 🔗

Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) is a systematic, evidence-based approach that uses communication strategies to influence knowledge, attitudes, and social norms within a target population. Unlike traditional one-way information campaigns, SBCC combines multiple channels – mass media, community mobilisation, interpersonal communication, advocacy, and digital platforms – to create an environment that supports and sustains behaviour change.

While SBCC is most commonly associated with public health (family planning, disease prevention, maternal health), its principles apply directly to governance. When the goal is to get citizens to actively engage with government processes, demand accountability, and exercise their legal rights, you need more than a poster or a news article. You need a sustained, multi-level communication strategy that addresses individual knowledge gaps, community-level social norms, and structural barriers – which is exactly what SBCC is designed to do.

In the governance context, SBCC helps bridge the gap between policy and practice. A law like the RTI Act may exist on paper, but if citizens don’t know about it, don’t understand how to use it, or fear retaliation for filing requests, the law remains underutilised. SBCC interventions target these exact barriers through carefully researched and audience-specific communication campaigns.

The Right to Information Act: a cornerstone of democratic governance 🔗

India’s RTI Act, 2005 gives every citizen the legal right to request information from public authorities. Government bodies must respond within 30 days, and officials who fail to comply without valid reason face penalties. The Act covers everything from government spending records and policy decisions to contracts, memos, and electronic data.

The impact has been substantial. RTI requests have helped uncover major corruption scandals, including irregularities in Commonwealth Games infrastructure spending and the 2G spectrum allocation. Citizens have used RTI to monitor public works, challenge misuse of subsidies, and demand better delivery of basic services like water and sanitation. As a governance tool, the Act has fundamentally shifted the power dynamic between public officials and the people they serve – officials now know their decisions can be questioned and scrutinised.

However, the RTI Act’s effectiveness depends heavily on public awareness. According to a report by Down To Earth, only about 12 per cent of people in rural India and around 30 per cent in urban India are aware of their rights under the RTI Act. This awareness gap is precisely where SBCC has played – and continues to play – a critical role.

How SBCC campaigns have promoted RTI awareness 🔗

SBCC campaigns for RTI operate at multiple levels: individual, community, and institutional. They use diverse communication channels and often involve partnerships between government agencies, civil society organisations, and media outlets.

Mass media campaigns 🔗

Television, radio, and print media have been widely used to educate the public about RTI provisions. Feature stories in newspapers and investigative reports on television highlight cases where citizens have successfully used RTI to expose corruption or secure their entitlements. These success stories serve a dual purpose: they inform people about the RTI process and also motivate others to use it by demonstrating tangible results.

Media campaigns often focus on simplifying the RTI filing process – explaining who can file a request, what kind of information can be sought, and what legal protections exist for applicants. For rural and semi-literate populations, radio has been particularly effective. Community radio stations across India have served as trusted, localised platforms for disseminating RTI-related information in regional languages, making the content accessible and culturally relevant.

Community engagement and grassroots mobilisation 🔗

Perhaps the most powerful example of SBCC in the RTI space comes from the grassroots level. The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), a people’s organisation founded in Rajasthan in 1990, is widely credited as the driving force behind India’s RTI movement. MKSS began by demanding transparency in local government expenditure, particularly wage records for rural development projects.

Their most innovative tool was the Jan Sunwai (public hearing), where official expenditure documents were read aloud to village communities. Residents could then verify whether the recorded spending matched reality – and often, it did not. These public hearings exposed widespread corruption, built community solidarity, and created a collective demand for the right to access government records.

MKSS used creative communication strategies straight out of the SBCC playbook: puppet shows, folk songs, street theatre, and truck yatras (mobile campaigns) that travelled from village to village spreading awareness about information rights. Co-founder Shankar Singh, a musician and storyteller, used art and satire to make the complex concept of government accountability accessible to rural audiences with limited formal education.

The MKSS movement is a textbook case of SBCC applied to governance: it combined formative research (understanding ground-level barriers to wage transparency), community-level mobilisation (Jan Sunwais), mass communication (media coverage, yatras), and advocacy (lobbying for legislative change) into a sustained campaign that ultimately resulted in the national RTI Act of 2005.

Civil society organisations and capacity building 🔗

Across India, numerous civil society organisations conduct SBCC-oriented RTI awareness campaigns. These include public seminars that bring together legal experts, activists, and citizens; community outreach programmes that target rural and underserved areas; and media campaigns that highlight RTI success stories. Organisations like the RTI Activist Association of India run workshops specifically designed to train citizens on how to file RTI applications, navigate the appeals process, and understand what information they are legally entitled to access.

In Delhi, the NGO Satark Nagarik Sangathan (SNS) operates information centres that help local residents and slum dwellers file RTI applications. Their work has led to measurable improvements in public services including water supply, sanitation, and the public distribution system – demonstrating how RTI awareness, when facilitated by community-level SBCC, translates directly into better governance outcomes.

Digital and social media 🔗

In the digital age, platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp have become important channels for RTI-related SBCC. Citizens share their RTI experiences, offer practical advice, and create communities of practice where newcomers can learn from experienced users. Media outlets and activists use these platforms to engage directly with the public, answer queries, and amplify stories of RTI-driven accountability. This peer-to-peer knowledge sharing is a powerful form of social behaviour change – it normalises the act of questioning government and reduces the perception that RTI is only for experts or activists.

Case studies: SBCC driving governance outcomes through RTI 🔗

Rajasthan: from wage transparency to a national law 🔗

The MKSS story is the most prominent case study of SBCC in governance. What began as a struggle for minimum wage transparency in drought-prone rural Rajasthan grew into a national movement. In 1996, MKSS organised a historic 40-day sit-in protest at Chang Gate in Beawar, demanding the right to access government expenditure records. The protest drew participants from across rural Rajasthan, and its significance lay in the fact that poor, often illiterate citizens were demanding information rather than food or shelter.

The Rajasthan government eventually amended its Panchayati Raj Rules in 1997 to allow public access to local expenditure records. Following the amendments, public hearings revealed corruption so clearly that some officials found guilty publicly returned misappropriated money. The movement expanded into a national campaign, leading to the passage of the RTI Act in 2005. The MKSS model – combining participatory democracy with strategic communication – has since influenced transparency movements in countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Exposing high-profile corruption 🔗

RTI requests, fuelled by growing public awareness, have been instrumental in uncovering some of India’s biggest corruption scandals. In 2010, a Delhi-based NGO called the Housing and Land Rights Network used RTI to reveal that the Delhi government had diverted funds from social welfare programmes to Commonwealth Games infrastructure. In 2011, RTI applications helped expose the 2G spectrum scam, one of the largest corruption scandals in Indian history. These high-profile cases, widely covered by media, further reinforced public confidence in RTI as a tool for accountability – creating a positive feedback loop where awareness leads to usage, usage leads to results, and results lead to greater awareness.

Local governance and service delivery 🔗

At the local level, RTI has enabled communities affected by land acquisition or environmental degradation to access information about policies impacting their rights. Citizens across the country have used RTI to question government decisions on education, health, infrastructure, and public services. Each successful case contributes to a cultural shift – from passive acceptance of government decisions to active civic engagement – which is fundamentally what SBCC aims to achieve.

Challenges facing SBCC and RTI in governance 🔗

Despite significant progress, several challenges continue to limit the impact of SBCC campaigns around RTI and governance more broadly.

Persistent awareness gaps 🔗

As noted, RTI awareness remains low, particularly in rural and marginalised communities. Language barriers, low literacy rates, and limited access to media reduce the reach of awareness campaigns. SBCC strategies need to be continuously adapted to local contexts – what works in urban Delhi may not work in tribal Jharkhand.

Bureaucratic resistance and institutional weaknesses 🔗

Many government officials view RTI as a threat to their authority and delay or deny information requests. As of mid-2022, more than 314,000 appeals were pending before the Central Information Commission. Several State Information Commissions remain either inactive or severely understaffed. This institutional inertia undermines the gains made by awareness campaigns – citizens who file RTI requests but receive no response quickly lose faith in the process.

Threats to RTI activists 🔗

A chilling challenge is the physical danger faced by RTI users. According to the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, over 51 RTI activists have been killed since 2005, and more than 300 have been harassed or attacked. The Whistleblower Protection Act of 2014 exists but remains poorly implemented. For SBCC campaigns to be effective, the safety environment must improve – people cannot be encouraged to exercise a right if doing so puts their lives at risk.

Legislative and policy setbacks 🔗

The 2019 amendment to the RTI Act gave the central government power to determine the tenure and salaries of Information Commissioners, raising concerns about executive interference in what should be independent institutions. More recently, amendments through data protection legislation have restricted access to certain categories of personal information held by public authorities. These developments risk rolling back the transparency gains that SBCC campaigns have helped achieve.

The way forward: strengthening SBCC for better governance 🔗

For SBCC to continue driving governance outcomes, several steps are necessary. First, awareness campaigns must be scaled up and localised, particularly in rural areas where RTI usage remains lowest. Community radio, local language content, and grassroots mobilisation through self-help groups and panchayats are effective channels that need greater investment.

Second, digital literacy programmes must accompany RTI awareness efforts. As governments increasingly move toward e-governance and online RTI portals, citizens need the skills to navigate these platforms. SBCC campaigns should integrate digital training components, especially for older adults and communities with limited internet access.

Third, the safety of RTI activists must be prioritised through stronger enforcement of whistleblower protection laws and active monitoring of threats against transparency seekers. Without this, no amount of communication campaigning will sustain public participation.

Finally, successful state-level models – like Gujarat’s efficient grievance redressal system or Maharashtra’s searchable RTI database – should be studied and replicated. SBCC campaigns can play a role in publicising these best practices and building demand for similar reforms in other states.

The intersection of SBCC and governance is ultimately about empowering citizens to move from being passive recipients of government services to active participants in democratic processes. When strategic communication is combined with strong legal frameworks and responsive institutions, the result is a more informed, engaged, and empowered citizenry – the bedrock of any functioning democracy.

What do you think? Can communication campaigns alone create lasting change in how citizens engage with governance, or do structural and institutional reforms need to come first? How can SBCC strategies be better adapted to reach the most marginalised communities who need RTI the most?

References

1. https://www.sbcguidance.org/understand/social-and-behaviour-change-communication
2. https://breakthroughactionandresearch.org/our-approaches/sbcc/
3. https://rti.gov.in/
4. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/governance/20-years-of-rti-act-reviving-the-spirit-of-the-act-requires-a-multifaceted-approach
5. https://rsisinternational.org/journals/ijrsi/digital-library/volume-12-issue-7/805-813.pdf
6. https://mkssindia.org/pages/aboutus.html
7. https://idronline.org/features/rights/rti-activist-shankar-singh-on-building-and-sustaining-social-movements/
8. https://rti-india.org/what-we-do/our-initiatives/
9. https://mkssindia.org/struggle-for-peoples-right-to-information/
10. https://iisppr.org.in/rti-unveiling-governance-strengthening-democracy/