How can citizen participation in community accountability meetings be encouraged? Background The 1995 Constitution of Uganda states that all leaders shall be answerable to the local citizens. This can be through organizing and attending community meetings where the citizens get to engage with their local leaders to strengthen accountability for improved service delivery. It is during such meetings that both political and technical leaders give accountability on the performance of sectors like health, education, roads and agriculture among others. Citizens can also participate in government planning, budgeting and decision making processes. However, on 30th October 2014, a researcher named Jonas Mbabazi published an opinion piece in the Daily Monitor where he indicated that after such meetings, elected leaders show little interest in following up with their duties. Leaders are also exploiting the lack of interest by local citizens to participate in such accountability meetings, to ignore the needs of the people they represent. Question How can citizen participation in community accountability meetings be encouraged? A. Educate citizens about their rights and responsibilities to have these meetings B. Provide a transport refund and other facilitation to citizens to participate in the meetings C. Strengthen the laws and policies to improve the participation of local citizens in such meetings Instructions Go to messages on your phone and type VOB followed by name of your DISTRICT and then your answer: either A, B or C. Leave a short comment explaining your choice. Send your message to 8585 –This SMS is totally FREE of charge.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 13:23:56 +0000