Projekte

Kurzbeschreibung:

Projektziel

Communities in the project area benefit from improved delivery of basic services that are planned for in a participatory manner and delivered in a way that is accountable to all citizens.

Erwartete Ergebnisse

Outcome1: Communities are empowered to hold the elected councils accountable to represent their needs and priorities.

Outcome 2: Elected councils hold the administration accountable for responding to their constituencies’ needs and priorities and oversee their work effectively.

Outcome3: Good practices and lessons learnt are captured and disseminated and knowledge products are developed and anchored within national institutions.

Zielgruppe

Beneficiaries: 29 woredas, 4.014.419 people (2.017.421 female).

Direct targets: Councilors, council standing committee members (16 members in each Woreda council), office heads and planning experts of the five pro-poor sector offices (agriculture, education, road, water and health), Woreda council speakers, Woreda council deputy speakers, and Kebele level council standing committee members, a total of 60.675 (30.337 female).

Partners: Wag Development Association, Amhara Women Association, Women Empowerment - Action, Amhara Development Association, Migbare Senay Children and Family Support Organization, and Bahir Dar University School of Law, Department of Governance.

Location: 29 woredas in West Gojjam, East Gojjam, South Gondar, South Wollo, Awi, and Wag Hemra zones of Amhara Regional National State.

Maßnahmen

The project focuses on strengthening the capacities of elected representatives of the people to ensure the people have a say in what goes on in their locality and are able to take control of what is prioritized in their community’s development; while ensuring the governance mechanisms required to effectively deliver inclusive and better-quality local services are in place. Key activities include:

- Gender analysis; establishment of inclusive citizen platforms and consultation platforms for council members;

- Training on Integrated Community Based Participatory Planning and Budgeting (ICBPP), on digital systems and knowledge management and gender equality for citizen platform members, youth associations, women associations, professional associations, Edirs and other community-based organizations; leadership training for women groups;

- Trainings on public speaking and leadership skills for women council members; trainings on ICBPP, resource mobilization, councils’ core duties, leadership skills, oversight roles, activity progress and financial report appraisal for Council members; trainings on rules of procedures and gender responsive budgeting for women council members;

- Training of trainers on participatory planning, budgeting, resource mobilization, monitoring and facilitation skill to CSOs, woreda planning team leaders and council standing committee leads;

- Capture and documentation of lessons learned, best practices, implementing processes and procedures and success stories; production of an annual bulletin/fact sheets.

- Twelve offices of woreda council and woreda plan units in each Zone of Wag Hemra and South Wollo will be supported with basic office equipment (tables, chairs, and shelves, desktop computers, photocopier machine, printers, digital cameras, voice recorder, microphone)

Hintergrundinformation

Ethiopia remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with more than 80% of the population re-siding in rural areas which unfortunately is synonymous with the lack of basic service provision. In Amhara region, as is the case all over Ethiopia, local communities’ direct involvement in the budgetary and development planning processes is limited to non-existent. This makes the inclusiveness of the limited available services questionable. Even at the local levels, the government lacks the institutional capacity to reach out to citizens and engage them systematically on issues of local development. Often, communities are seen as mere recipients of government (and donor) sponsored inputs and services without any say in priority setting or what and how they are delivered. In the federated administrative structure of Ethiopia, this gap between the executive planning and the community needs is meant to be filled by local elected direct representatives, council members, from the Kebele to the Regional levels. However, as it stands now, the elected council members are neither fully aware of their mandated power and responsibility and nor feel empowered to demand that the executive respond to community priorities, and to legislate and provide oversight so that local government budget and community contributions are spent in a transparent and accountable manner.