News

Local leaders’ engagement towards sustainability of project outcomes

Domain of change : Influencing the Government to adopt the Community Scorecard as a tool for improving citizen participation
District : Gisagara
Introduction : PPIMA project aims at strengthening the voice of citizens and civil society organizations in Rwanda to contribute to improvement of service delivery and citizen participation through the use of Community Score Card tool, a community driven process through which citizens engage with local service providers, in monitoring and giving feedback on the public services they receive and participate in the process of the preparation and implementation of the District plan and budget. The implementation of mentioned project activities is facilitated by community volunteers elected at cell level called Governance Focal Persons (GFPs) with support of District Project Officer through coaching, mentorship and capacity building. In partnership with Gisagara district local leaders, the GFPs are now able to facilitate the community scorecard process from cell level to district level advocating for community priority issues.
Changes : At each level of local government, there are leaders or duty bearers whose sole responsibility is to ensure that services do reach communities and people are able to live decent lives. For this to happen, it is increasingly important for communities to engage with their leaders. “We are very delighted to the work done by Governance Focal Persons and FVA to assess and report on the availability and level of access to services ; these reports help us know where things are note running well and take corrective measures. It is good to help our people know their rights but also we encourage GFPs to continue help our people know their duties, their contribution to receiving good quality services and their wellbeing.” Vice Mayor in Charge of Social Affairs in Gisagara district asserted in her closing remarks of the district dialogue forum on service delivery organized by FVA.
Significance of the change : During the implementation of community scorecard, GFPs collected and advocated citizen issues at cell only where the District Field Officer had to conduct other stages at sector and district level ; Today, the positive impact resulted from the improved working environment between Governance focal persons and sector executive committee and increased ownership of community scorecard implementation.
Challenges : The challenge encountered in this reporting period is the short period of conducting the community scorecard rollout on service delivery and busy schedules of district and sector officials including preparations of Presidential and Parliamentarians elections and it became hard to find the right person to respond to citizens’ issues raised from cells.