Project Details

Main Objective

To increase awareness of the role they can play in improving governance and relationships between citizens and governments at all levels.

Description

The national elections are just 1 year and few months from now, and everyone should be on the lookout, especially after such exercise. Responsible and concerned citizens should not feel complacent but should be vigilant and be on guard. What better way can we do as citizens to get involved in community affairs and development. A valuable tool for strengthening local democracy, good governance and human rights is a participatory planning approach or exercise in all aspects of community development. Many sectors, local and international, support and strengthen the role of citizens in the deepening of democracy, human rights, access to justice and governance reforms. Private and public sectors strive hard to work at the community level particularly, to support them in practically operationalizing the principles, by supporting them in identifying weaknesses, and working with them to build stronger governance frameworks and improve local democratic structures to enable more efficient running and management of their local authorities and resources to facilitate local economic development. The project shall consider the ways in which the judiciary’s place in the constitution has been changing and might change in the future. There is need to maintain the separation of judicial and political authority, the project shall raise awareness to restate, in the context of modern times and modern problems, the nature and limits of judicial power within our constitutional tradition and the related scope of proper legislative and executive authority.

This project will endeavor to touch-base with the Communities and their constituency through using IEC materials (on democracy and rights to justice), a series of trainings and seminar workshops involving the participation of community officials, local populace, and other key local government officials. It will likewise create some structures where citizens monitoring engagement and initiatives will be strengthened. The project shall help the local populace and community officials to understand the principles of effective local democracy and good governance and how this relates to local accountability. It will explore practical solutions for developing robust structures, tools to improve local accountability and decision making, and suggest initiatives and projects to help them foster and support local democracy and human right governance within the community hence leading to development.