Knowledge Democracy
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Item Citizen report card: Citizen feedback for effective service delivery: An operational manual(Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 2013) Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)Asia is urbanising at a pace faster than ever. The ever increasing population in the Asian cities and the consequent increase in demands for supply of basic services like housing, water, sanitation, health, education etc. pose enormous challenges to the urban local governance institutions. The existing capacities and resources of most urban local governance institutions are over stretched. The situation is exacerbated due to lack of governance reforms leading to enormous deficits in the transparency, accountability and citizen participation – the hallmarks of any democratic governance institutions. The engagement of civil society organisations (CSOs) is pivotal in making the urban local governance institutions transparent, accountable, responsive and participatory. However, the capacities of CSOs to engage and hold the urban local governance institutions are also limited. The project “Deepening Local Democratic Governance through Social Accountability in Asia” aimed to improve democratic practices in urban local governance institutions through social accountability for improving the provision of basic services to the most marginalised families in two Asian cities – Rajshahi in Bangladesh and Takhmao in Cambodia. The project was supported by the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF) and was implemented by the Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) in partnership with PRIP Trust, Bangladesh and SILAKA, Cambodia. It addressed the deficits of democratic practices, particularly the lack of citizen participation, transparency and accountability mechanisms in municipalities, due to which these institutions often fail to deliver services effectively and equitably and lack responsiveness towards the most marginalised. It made efforts to enhance organised citizen action and participation through mobilisation, capacity building, campaigns and participatory monitoring (using citizen report card and citizen monitoring methods) to ensure accountability. Its endeavours included enhancing citizens’ access to information and basic services by developing partnership with the elected municipalities to establish ‘models’ of social accountability mechanisms, particularly using citizen charters, pro-active information disclosures and public grievance redressal mechanisms. Having harvested the lessons from these interventions at the municipality level coupled with specific policy analysis at the sub-national and national levels, policy dialogues and policy oriented capacity building learning events were organised towards policy changes. It contributed to enhance capacities of local intermediary CSOs through training, exposure visits, on-site coaching and mentoring for implementing various social accountability approaches and tools and also influencing national and sub-national policies on urban governance issues. One of the critical outcomes of the intervention was to systematise the experience of implementing specific social accountability approaches, tools and methods so that the practitioners from CSOs as well as municipal officials could scale up, mainstream and institutionalise these practices elsewhere. Three operational manuals produced through this initiative are significant step towards these purposes. We sincerely hope that the practitioners from CSOs and officials from the municipalities will find these manuals handy and useful.Item Regionalizing the UNESCO knowledge for change consortium: K4C at the ESC!(UNESCO Chair, 2023-10-05) Mercy, Nkatha