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Communique Issued at the End of the Town-hall Meeting on Mobilizing Citizens for Open Government Partnership (OGP) organized by the Coalition of Associations for Leadership, Peace, Empowerment & Development (CALPED), Kaduna North Local Government Council and Local Government Accountability Mechanism (LGAM)

Preamble

On the 30th November, 2021, the Coalition of Associations for Leadership, Peace, Empowerment & Development (CALPED) under its Mobilizing Citizens for OGP project collaborated with the Kaduna North Local Government Council and Local Government Accountability Mechanism (LGAM) to organize a one day town-hall meeting with the theme – Interface between State and Community Actors on OGP for Improved Service Delivery.

The objectives of the town-hall meeting were to: increase community stakeholders awareness on OGP State Action Plan (SAP,2021-2023); acquaint stakeholders on relevant MDAs programmes and intervention within the OGP framework; encourage community stakeholders’ participation in the OGP through identified entry points and feedback mechanism; and promote partnership between government MDAs and community stakeholders for improved service delivery at the grassroots.

The participants were drawn from the Vice Chairman of Kaduna North Local Government Council, Monitoring & Evaluation Department and State Operations Coordinating Unit (SOCU) from the Planning & Budget Commission (P&BC), OGP Secretariat, Kaduna Public Procurement Authority (KADPPA), Ministry of Education, Community and Social Development Agency (CSDA), representative of Civil Society members of the OGP State Steering Committee, members of Kaduna North Local Government Accountability Mechanism, Community Development Charter (CDC) Champions from nine wards, civil society organizations, traditional rulers and religious leaders.

Observations

The participants welcomed the Mobilizing Citizens for OGP initiative which sought to create platforms where state and non-state actors can interface towards promoting community awareness and participation in the new OGP State Action Plan (SAP, 2021-2023).

The majority of the participants expressed low awareness of most of the State Government reforms, programs and interventions under the OGP State Action Plan, Kaduna Public Procurement Authority, Kaduna Social Investment Office and Community & Social Development Agency.

The Kaduna North Local Government Council expressed willingness to leverage on the OGP commitments and CDC process to continue to engage community stakeholders to ensure its residents benefit from the various state government programs and interventions.

Citizens and civil society organizations were urged to forward their community issues to the local government council, who in turn can forward those beyond them to the state government.

The Local Government Accountability Mechanism (LGAM), which has been established in the 23 Local Government Areas through an initiative co-created by the Ministry for Local Government Affairs, civil society partners and Partnership to Engage, Reform & Learn (PERL), provides a permanent dialogue platform that seeks to deepen ongoing local government reforms towards improving the quality of service delivery through community engagement.

Kaduna State Government joined the OGP with the aspiration to improve transparency, accountability and responsiveness in service delivery in the state; and the Honorable Commissioner of Planning & Budget Commission and a citizens’ group representatives, Hajia Hadiza Umar, are co-chairs of the State Steering Committee.

The OGP allows the citizens to engage the government and also to ask relevant questions regarding projects in their community. Some of the channels provided for citizens’ engagement as a result of OGP include the Kaduna Citizens Feedback App, the toll-free line, and the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) portal.

On open contracting, the Director General of KADPPA and Muhammad Sani Kassim, representing the citizens’ groups are the co-chairs of the technical working group. The Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and local government councils are mandated to submit their procurement plans to KADPPA and those procurement plans are treated based on priorities, from the top to the least.

The Authority is expected to publish timely updates on date and time of bid opening on the e-procurement portal and also other procurement information after the bidding process. When citizens and civil society organizations need access to information on a project from any MDA, they should write to them and if after 15 days of writing there is no answer they should write to KADPPA.

The State Operations Coordinating Unit (SOCU) under the Planning and Budget Commission has a mandate to identify and capture the poor and vulnerable households into the State Social Register. So far, 22 LGAs, excluding Birnin Gwari, 680,888 households and 2,656,993 individuals have been captured in the State Social Register.

The SOCU will soon commence Rapid Response Register (RRR) in Kaduna North and other remaining Local Governments.

The Community and Social Development Agency has a mandate to reduce poverty in communities, with focus on four major intervention areas; Education (building and renovation), Health (nutrition), Water and Sanitation (toilets and boreholes). They work with relevant stakeholders in related areas to provide these interventions.

Any community can write to the Agency seeking an intervention; however, these communities will have to provide 10% of the project cost either in cash or kind. The CSDA team groups community members into men, women, vulnerable and the aged. These four groups will also have the Imam, pastors, the procurement team, the monitoring team and the operational team.

In this process there is a pre-sensitization team who go to communities and inform the leaders on the interventions.

The service delivery technical working group of the OGP is planning to facilitate awareness creation in communities, monitor and track projects in health and education to ensure quality delivery.

The Ministry of Education encourages community stakeholders to track and monitor projects within their locality, especially school facilities.

There is a need for synergy between CDC and local government counselors for identification.

Resolutions

The Kaduna North Local Government Council committed to leverage on such partnerships to sensitize communities on government reforms and programs.

The State Operations Coordinating Unit (SOCU) will partner with Kaduna North Local Government Council and other Civil Society Organizations to sensitize community members and ensure the urban poor and vulnerable residents are well captured in the Rapid Response Register (RRR).

CALPED to support Community Development Charter (CDC) Champions in Kaduna North to pay advocacy visit to the Community and Social Development Agency (CSDA)

The civil society members in Kaduna North together with CALPED will pay an advocacy visit to the Executive Chairman towards strengthening the Kaduna North Local Government Accountability Mechanism.

The CDC Champions are to step-down information on government reforms, programs and interventions in all the wards of Kaduna North Local Government Area.

CALPED will provide technical support to the Kaduna North Local Government Accountability Mechanism (LGAM) to track and monitor projects within their communities.

Signed by:

Stephen Waya,
Head of Gender & Social Inclusion/Team Lead, Community Participation & Engagement
CALPED

Bako Abdul Usman,
Campaign for Democracy/Co-chair, Kaduna North Local Government Accountability Mechanism

Sumayya Abdullahi Hussaini
Secretariat,
Local Government Accountability Mechanism (LGAM), Kaduna state

Timothy Sajoh,
Community Development Charter (CDC) Champion,
Kaduna North Local Government

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