By Vincent Gunde
District Civic Education Expert for Nice Trust in Dowa Alinafe Chikakuda, says Nice Trust is committed to support the Dowa Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) Network by making sure that it is capacitated to be able to engage the local council on issues of development particularly focusing on issues of transparency and accountability.
Chikakuda said the Nice Trust is aware that CSOs Network forms a link between the communities and government describing this as an entry point to engage government on issues of development which are being implemented in the district.
The Nice Trust in the district organized a—one day meeting with the CSOs Network and its members on strengthening transparency and accountability within the council and the local development structures as well as discussing how CSOs can play mindset change for the country to attain a 2063 agenda or goals.
Speaking at the meeting, Chikakuda said there is poor coordination among CSOs in the district pledging to continue to support the CSOs Network to strengthen them and build their capacity so that they are able to engage government on issues of development for the district.
“As a governance watchdog, CSOs Network must be capacitated to engage the local council on issues of transparency and accountability,” said Chikakuda.
In his remarks, Dowa Civil Society Organizations Network Chairperson Maxwell Kadutsa, said the Network has developed an Action Plan for sub committees to be active and be able to report back to the whole Network and when they attend Dec, they should also report back.
Kadutsa said the Network will engage with the full Council so that there should be representation from the Network in the council meetings saying this will enhances cooperation, transparency and accountability on all projects which are being implemented in the district.
He lamented that the district has DDF, CDF and Gesd, a World Bank funded project observing that following up and monitoring, is a challenge and this goes back to the local structures on how they were empowered on their roles to supervise and have information on the projects.
“We will try to engage council where possible and try to inform and orient the structures ADCS and VDCs so that they understand their roles and ordinary citizens understands their rights in terms of following up the development taking place,” he said.
Kadutsa urged the local structures that whenever they have issues they should report to council or engage their leaders MPs and councilors and if nothing is happening, they should consult the CSOs Network or even go to the media and explain what the problems are with funds and data.
