USAID State2State Trains 40 participants on Community Charter Demand
No fewer than 40 participants from line Ministries, Department and Agencies MDAs, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), and People LIving with Disabilities PWDs have been trained on Citizen/ community Charter of Demand CCD.
The two-day training at Leilah suites Gombe, was organised by the United States Agency For International Development USAID State Accountability Transparency and Effectiveness State to State S2S Activity.
Objectives of the training are to familiarise MDAs and CSOs with the understanding of Citizens/Community Charter of Demand CCD, build their capacity to design and use the community charter of Demand and to sensitise the participants on the need for implementing the community charter of Demand in Gombe state during the state’s annual budget processes.
S2S believes in citizens engagements in government activities, transparency and Effectiveness in governance.
The Gombe State Citizens Engagement and Capacity Building Specialist of S2S Mr Philip defined Citizens/Community Charter of Demand as a document that contains the needs of various communities ranked in order of preference as agreed by various community groups and actors.
“These needs are derived from town hall meetings and other collaborative gatherings were communal priority is discussed and decided with all groups within the community present.Such as the Aged, Women, People living With Disabilities,Youths,” Ikita explained.
He told the participants that the CCD is an important tool for citizens engagement as it contains the representative needs of a community, gathered and complied in an inclusive and participatory manner adding that it is submitted to government for inclusion in budget.
Ikita said the role of the MDAs is to call submission of CCDs through the CSOs and community association, send submitted CCD to MDA responsible for budget planning.
He said, “The practicality of the CCD tool is expected to help administrators to do their jobs and given increasing demands be from citizens,it is politically expedient for the government to take advantage of the tool.”
The role of the CSOs on the other hand is to help in the representation of groups especially the marginalized and that they an important source of information for both citizens and government.
Participants interviewed by PERISCOPE NIGERIA after the training described the workshop as quite impactful.
Hitherto,we just receive requests.Eg construction of hospitals but we have learnt in this workshop to prioritise the demands of the people and include it in the budget, Dr Abel Ardo said.
According to Dobe Danladi, “We just use to assume people’s need but i have learnt to go back to the drawing board and prepare budget in line with the people’s needs.”
I have learnt processes of community charter of Demand ,how to design it based on our priorities and to follow up for inclusion in budget preparation, says Bala Jibrin Zannah a PWD participant told Periscope Nigeria.
“We will stepdown to community members what we have learnt and as CSOs we work hand in with MDAs to prepare a citizens budgets where every segment of the society are involved.We will create awareness on the how to go about preparing the CCD so the communities can present their needs in other of priority,” Dr Erisa Danladi said.
Danladi added, “We were also trained on how to fill the CCD template, what does it even mean to the community and to go about it.”
Dr Danladi said the workshop was full of knowledge about community charter of Demand and that with the knowledge acquired CSOs will go back to their communities enlighten and mobilise on the the charter and forward it to relevant MDA
“With this knowledge and the way government of the day is operating, there is cooperation and collaboration.We have the budget planning and partner coordination office where it has most of cries and they listen ,so with the knowledge acquired we will begin to see more improvement and alot of community demands in subsequent budget,” she added.
The training workshop was interactive and engaging. Participants where grouped to work on different topics related to CCD and thought how to fill the CCD template.
