Social accountability is a means to achieve good governance, increased public participation for improved public service delivery (Ahmad, 2008), and one of the strategies for deepening decentralised development administration (King, Owusi, Braimah, 2013). The literature on social accountability reveals that there is a relationship between social accountability and public participation. Most literature on social accountability and participation focuses on ward committees and the functioning of IDP prioritisation processes, and pays little attention to how social accountability is implemented and by whom. Civil Society Organisations are often the alternative actors that demand accountability in government or train citizens to hold duty bearers accountable. However, there is little research that analyses the effectiveness of CSOs in doing this work. This paper analyses the applicability of social accountability by three CSOs in four communities based in two provinces in South Africa. The paper is theoretically guided by the participatory democratic and principal-agent theories. In this paper, the principal-agent theory analyses the relationship between citizens and duty bearers in service delivery and accountability, while participatory democratic theory analyses the participation of the selected active citizens within Makana Local Municipality and the City of Johannesburg. The paper draws from a qualitative explorative case study. A qualitative purposive sampling method was used to select key active citizens who were trained by three CSOs in four communities. Data collection was conducted through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and secondary data. The thematic analysis method was used to analyse data. The findings reveal how active citizens acquired knowledge and skills from the CSOs to apply social accountability in their municipalities. The paper makes recommendations to improve efforts to enhance citizen participation through CSOs and efforts to improve active citizenry through social accountability monitoring and advocacy.