The Soul Beat 190 - Citizen Action and Government Accountability
In this issue of The Soul Beat:
- PROGRAMME EXPERIENCES on participatory budgeting and public accountability...
- Join the ONLINE D & G NETWORKING AND DISCUSSION SPACE...
- THINKING around citizen action and mobile technology for local governance...
- RESOURCE MATERIALS on activism and community empowerment...
- TRAINING on civic engagement and a photography contest to support democracy...
This issue of The Soul Beat looks at citizen action and citizen participation in governance, with a specific emphasis on how citizens can hold governments accountable for good governance, responsible budgeting, and service delivery at local and national levels. The newsletter includes a selection of programme experiences, research reports, and resource materials from the recently launched Soul Beat Africa Democracy and Governance (D & G) themesite (see below for more information).
If you would like your organisation's communication work or research and resource documents to be featured on the Soul Beat Africa website and in The Soul Beat newsletters, please send information to soulbeat@comminit.com
To subscribe to The Soul Beat click here or send an email to soulbeat@comminit.com with a subject of "subscribe".
NEW! SOUL BEAT AFRICA DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNANCE THEMESITE
For knowledge and resources on D & G and communication, visit Soul Beat Africa's new Democracy and Governance Themesite click here.
The themesite offers communication-related knowledge in the following D & G focus areas:
Civic Engagement; Rights and Justice; Media and D & G; Gender Empowerment; Conflict and Peace; Anti-Corruption; Freedom of Information; Elections; and Parliaments.
The themesite and accompanying free D & G e-newsletter form part of a joint initiative between Soul Beat Africa and the Mobilising Knowledge for Development (MK4D) project of the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) in the United Kingdom. If you did not receive the first edition of the D & G e-newsletter in December and would like to receive it, please send an email to soulbeat@comminit.com
1. Participatory Budgeting Programme - Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
Launched in April 2010, the Participatory Budgeting programme in South Kivu province is designed to facilitate citizens’ knowledge and decision-making related to the budgets of their cities and communities. Through face-to-face meetings, supported by the use of cell phone text messages to disseminate information, the project is working to enable people to play a lead role in determining where public funds should be spent, as well as monitoring this spending. The programme in DRC is part of ongoing work of the World Bank globally to encourage participatory budgeting.
2. Twaweza - Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda
Launched in 2009, Twaweza (which means "We Can Make It Happen" in Swahili) is a 10-year initiative that seeks to enable people in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda to improve their quality of life through a citizen-centered approach to development and public accountability. Twaweza is designed to give citizens the information and skills they need to hold their governments accountable, and does so by supporting large-scale partnerships and initiatives that create space for direct engagement with citizens. Instead of relying exclusively on organisations, Twaweza brokers relationships across a range of institutions and networks that ordinary citizens already use to meet and share information. These institutions may include mass media (radio, television, newspapers), private businesses such as mobile phone companies, commercial product distribution networks, religious organisations, trade unions, and other groups that tend not to be included in development efforts. By focusing on this brokering and mediation, Twaweza sees itself as fostering an ecosystem of change and a shift in information ecologies in East Africa.
3. Madjuba - Mozambique
Initiated in September 2010, Madjuba: Quest for the Talisman is a 13-episode serial radio drama produced by CMFD (Community Media for Development) Productions for the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in Mozambique. It is designed to raise awareness and discussion on democracy, human rights, civic participation, transparency, accountability, the right to information, and freedom of expression.
4. Public Participation in Local Governance (PPLG) Programme - Ghana
Launched by IBIS in 2007, this programme works towards ensuring that all citizens in Ghana can exercise the right to participate in the governance of their own communities. Focussing especially on women and marginalised groups, the PPLG programme supports civil society organisations and local government departments in developing a healthy and democratic engagement in governance with respect for the rights of all citizens.
SOUL BEAT AFRICA D & G ONLINE NETWORKING AND DISCUSSION SPACE
Soul Beat Africa has also developed a D & G networking space for organisations working in D & G in Africa to share information, network, build partnerships, and collaborate. We would like to encourage you to join which you can do by registering here and ticking the box for the "Soul Beat Africa: Democracy and Governance Network".
This forum also includes a space for you to submit information for inclusion on the D & G website and e-newsletters.
5. Blurring the Boundaries: Citizen Action Across States and Societies - A Summary of Findings from a Decade of Collaborative Research on Citizen Engagement
By Nicholas Benequista
Published by the Development Research Centre on Citizenship (Citizenship DRC) of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in 2011, this summary of findings from the decade beginning in 2000 is intended as a synopsis of and reference guide to the Citizenship DRC's work, including materials on theory, case studies, and policy recommendations. The document, published in June 2011, also contains a final section with advice on how to take a citizen-led approach to development. Amongst other issues, the document identifies six factors that have an influence on whether citizen engagement takes on a positive, self-reinforcing dynamic: prior citizen capabilities; institutional and political context; strength of internal champions; location of power and decision making; history and style of engagement; and the nature of the issue.
6. Recognising Community Voice and Dissatisfaction: A Civil Society Perspective on Local Governance in South Africa
This report from 2011 is the result of a collective process of reflection on the meaning and implications of community protests for local governance by the Good Governance Learning Network (GGLN) in South Africa. The publication includes fifteen contributions broadly organised into three sections: 1) concepts of participation and democracy; 2) state-organised structures of participation ("invited spaces"); and 3) community-created spaces of participation, including protest action ("invented spaces"). The contributions "seek to critically enhance government and civil society's understanding of the importance of recognising community voice and dissatisfaction as a legitimate alternative to pre-defined and state-sanctioned modalities of public participation. The underlying concern is with the technicist, procedural, and instrumentalist approach that has (by and large) come to underpin public participation in South Africa. The plea, therefore, is for more dynamic, more meaningful and more varied modes of participation to be nurtured."
7. Mobile Innovation for Local Governance
The proliferation of mobile phones and mobile service worldwide makes possible the use of mobile phone applications for local governance. This paper, published in October 2011, proposes the website Mobile Innovation for Local Governance (MoGo) for the centralisation of resources and case studies on mobile applications for local government. As stated here: "Worldwide, the explosion of communication tools and technologies has been reshaping the way people organize themselves to demand actions and to participate in social and political institutions. This has challenged democracies, totalitarian governments and religious hierarchies across the world. Accessible, affordable and innovative communication tools push the role and boundaries of citizenship which is going through a tremendous redefinition.
8. Boiling Point: Can Citizen Action Save The World?
By Kumi Naidoo
This book is part of the Development Dialogue Series and offers the insights and reflections - both critical and self-critical - of a prominent civil society activist, Kumi Naidoo, who has been engaged in local and global struggles for emancipation for over 30 years. On the basis of his own experiences in many different contexts, he pleads for the involvement of ordinary people in the work for greater justice in this world. His point of departure is that civil society cannot be strengthened in a vacuum. Its achievements must be the result of actions by real people dealing with real problems. Naidoo defines this volume as "an examination of the functioning of democracy, and the way in which civil society steps in where democracy no longer serves the purpose it sets out to do...(democratic deficit)."
GIVE US YOUR FEEDBACK
We would love to get your feedback on some of the knowledge shared in this newsletter. At the bottom of each webpage you will see a star rating option as well as a comments form. Please rate the content and/or let us know what you think by sending a brief comment through the comments form. Your feedback will be greatly appreciated and will help us to better support your work.
9. Making Local Government Work: An Activist’s Guide
By Claire McNeil
Designed for activists, this guide contains general advice on current law and rights related to local government in South Africa. Published in 2011, it sets out the legal responsibilities of local government and people's rights under the Constitution and in law, and discusses strategies of how to engage government from inside, by participating in formal processes, and from outside, by going public through complaints, petitions, protest actions, the media, and the courts. Published as a joint project by SECTION 27, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI), and Read Hope Phillips, the guide is intended to be a practical resource to assist communities and organisations to participate in municipal processes and consolidate national democracy.
10. People's Action for Just and Democratic Governance: Using Evidence to Establish Accountability - A Sourcebook on Democratic Accountability for Development Practitioners and Learning Facilitators
By Erika Coetzee and Anna Schnell
The purpose of this Accountability Sourcebook, published by MSActionAid-Denmark in 2010, is to provide strategists, implementers, trainers, and enablers with an analytical framework for understanding accountability relationships between the state and its citizens. It contains an action focus on how non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations (CSOs) can hold state institutions, service providers and duty bearers to account, using an evidence-based approach incorporating a range of tools and methods. The Sourcebook provides some key skills and knowledge about state-citizen accountability relationships and the practical skills and ability to hold power wielders to account. It has not been designed or structured to offer precise training guidelines but can be used by practitioners to design and inform training.
11. Empowerment Guide
By Helene Kyed, Christine Kamau, John Fox, and Eric Hahonou
The purpose of this guide, published by MS ActionAid Denmark in 2010, is to give inspiration, new ideas, and examples of how to initiate political empowerment of poor and marginalised people. It asks questions such as: Who are the local actors? Who are marginalised and what skills and socio-political background do they have? How can marginalised people, who may be reluctant to influence decision-making or demand rights, be stimulated to mobilise themselves, and what are the available local channels and means to do so? Who among the local population have the skills, personality and courage to be drivers of change in the political empowerment process such as in the mobilisation and organisation of groups?
12. Social Accountability and Social Change: A Toolkit for Small-scale Farmers
By Meleney Tembo
This toolkit, published in 2011, provides a structured programme of activities and worksheets designed to be used by facilitators working in and with small-scale farmers’ associations in central, west, and southern Africa. It was produced to empower organisations with skills, such as budget monitoring and the use of community scorecards, to improve their situations, grow their organisations, and ultimately contribute more effectively to ensuring food security for themselves, their communities, and ultimately to the whole region. The Institute for Democracy in Africa (IDASA) Economic Governance Programme (EGP) produced the toolkit, which was subsequently ratified by the nine partner country organisations that are part of EGP’s Public Expenditure and Smallholder Agriculture Project.
13. A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance: Communication Package
This communication package is intended to assist United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Country Office members in convening structured discussions with country partners who are exploring the possibility local governance assessments and who are seeking advice and guidance.
14. Civic Empowerment and Social Movements Course (Mar 5-16 2012) Arusha, Tanzania
According to the organisers of this workshop, MS Training Centre for Development Cooperation (MS-TCDC), by the end of the course, participants will have a good understanding of the dimensions and challenges of different approaches to empowerment for poor and marginalised people and be able to design, plan, and offer advice based on the needs and wishes of the people themselves. Participants will also gain a better understanding of social movements, how they form and the dynamics involved, as well as an appreciation of their strengths and weaknesses, risks and pitfalls. This course therefore, offers participants knowledge, core skills and tools required to run effective civic empowerment programmes and be able to support and facilitate movement building for social justice.
15. IFES Democracy Photography Contest 2012
Deadline: February 16 2012
The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) invites entries in its annual photo contest profiling the ways people around the world demonstrate a sense of civic responsibility. The contest seeks images of individuals taking part in the electoral process and other activities that demonstrate the values of democratic governance and civic engagement.
OTHER SOUL BEAT E-NEWSLETTERS ON DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNANCE:
The Soul Beat 154 - Anti-Corruption and Accountability in Africa
The Soul Beat 161 - The Team Series in Africa
The Soul Beat 144 - Communication for Peace and Conflict Prevention
The Soul Beat 122 - Communication and Elections in Africa
To view ALL past editions of The Soul Beat e-newsletter click here.
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