Civil society organisations (CSOs), in Lere local government Area of Kaduna State, Northwest Nigeria have embraced the governance reforms with the adoption of the co-creation principles of the Open Governance Partnership (OGP) by the council.
This is to expand the civic space for more citizens engagement in the decision-making processes at the Local government level .
Under the process, the Local government Council will work closely with the CSOs to constitute a Technical Working Group with both peered as co-chair, to ensure that the local government adopts and entrench the co-creation principles of the OGP in the governance processes.
These are part of the Communique issued at the end of a new day Dialogue and Strategy Session On Domesticating the Co- Creation Principles of the Open Governance Partnership in Lere Local Govt Area.
The TWG, according to the Communique, will serve as the committee to organise two citizens-driven budget town-hall meetings before the passage of the 2019 local government budget.
The communique says CSOs in the local government will develop a budget tracking, monitoring and reporting template to provide independent and unbiased feedback on performance.
Participants also adopted holding another strategy session to domesticate the Federal Tracking and Reporting Template produced by CSOs and the National Assembly with the support of PERL-DFID.
Aside the budget town-hall meetings and deployment of the citizens’ tracking and reporting template, participants resolved that the council will rotate town-hall meetings across the 11 wards to get direct feedback from the citizens on budget implementation and participatory performance evaluation.
Other recommendations are that all Councillors in the local government area to open social media handles to disseminate information on their activities and to get direct feedback from their constituents.
Similarly,CSOs will step up engagements through the social media to engage government’s newly launched official handles in demanding transparency, accountability and responsiveness in Lere Local government
The participants acknowledged the session as a beautiful energy between the government and CSOs towards forging a solid partnership in order to promote transparency, accountability, responsiveness and citizens-centred service delivery in Lere local government.
https://www.africaprimenews.com/2018/07/12/news/nigerian-governors-pledge-increased-synergy-to-check-killings/
