Aidan Craney and Bernadett Besebes have produced a report analysing how accountability is understood and practiced in Palau.The study is a part of the EU-funded Vaka Pasifika Project run by UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji.
Palau has a highly urbanised population of roughly 18,000 people, a huge proportion of traditional and elected leaders to citizens, a long colonial history, large migrant workforce and high incomes.
Formal accountability in Palau is strongly shaped by the country's Compact of Free Association (COFA) agreement with the US. This means that formal accountability in Palau is largely outwards-facing and concerned with reporting to the US, rather than inwardly focused on citizen engagement and oversight of decision making.
Compared to the compliance focus of formal accountability processes, everyday accountability is much more shaped by personal relationships. Despite being a matrilineal society, everyday power in Palau is wielded predominantly by men. Although social closeness means there are abundant opportunities to engage directly with leaders to share opinions, ask questions and hold them to account, cultural reticence to be seen as critical of leaders dissuades such engagement.
Despite the best efforts of those who work tirelessly for improved accountability and governance standards, there is little upwards social pressure on chiefs and congresspeople. This approach reflects both the centrality of relationships to Palauan society but also the lax reporting and minimal judicial consequences for impropriety.
Recommendations for improving accountability focus on building local legitimacy of accountability efforts, as opposed to focusing on capacity for outwards-facing reporting. A clear and obvious first step is to work with existing power systems, including chiefs, elected officials and the influential women’s groups that appoint chiefs.
Although improved transparency on its own is unlikely to significantly reshape the accountability ecosystem, further efforts to improve accountability might focus on access to timely and accurate information, including expanding the critical analysis and reach of local media and increasing the availability of information in local languages.
Donors should also seek to promote opportunities to bring civil society together. Despite the concentration of the population in and around Koror, Palau’s citizens, residents and communities are often isolated from one another in terms of civic discourse. Convening space for civil society to meet – and including marginalised voices such as those of youth and the massive population of migrant labourers – offers an opportunity to build collective power to realise self-determined change goals.
Working with existing structures, providing convening power for citizens and residents, and improving access to timely and accurate information all hold potential for supporting everyday accountability in Palau.
For further insights into our research on Pacific accountability ecosystems and to read other country studies visit Accountability Ecosystems in the Pacific, Centre for Human Security and Social Change, La Trobe University.
