Bobo-Dioulasso: The Inclusive Governance for Resilience Project (IGR) organized in Bobo-Dioulasso from April 30 to May 2, 2024, a training workshop for members of Civil Society Organizations (CSO) on advocacy and the mechanisms for monitoring public policies and citizen inquiry in the Hauts-Bassins region.
Civil society organizations (CSOs) are not sufficiently equipped to carry out advocacy actions and monitor local public policies in order to better hold local governments accountable, according to the Inclusive Governance for Resilience Project (IGR).
Indeed, on the ground, and because they are certainly highly politicized, and therefore non-neutral, these CSOs most often adopt wait-and-see positions and only take action on the encouragement or initiative of local leaders.
Moreover, most of their initiatives are considered highly partisan and co-opted. It is with these observations that IGR considered it important to train these actors on the theme of advocacy and mechanisms for monitoring public policie
s and citizen questioning.
To do this, a training session was organized from April 30 to May 2, 2024 in Bobo-Dioulasso, for the benefit of CSOs intervening in the field of governance in the municipalities of intervention of IGR des Hauts-Bassins, in particular Bobo- Dioulasso, Peni, Toussiana, Houndé.
In total, around forty participants, from civil society organizations, took part in this training session.
Participants come from young people, women, people living with disabilities and internally displaced people.
Through this training, the aim was to strengthen the technical capacities of local leaders of civil society organizations in the communes of Hauts-Bassins on advocacy and mechanisms for monitoring public policies and citizen questioning accompanied by a advocacy plan.
The training session was punctuated by communications on the role of actors from municipal councils, special delegations and CSOs in local governance, the advocacy technique, the citizen questioning technique and the public policy
monitoring technique.
The presentations were followed by exchanges and sharing of experiences in a participatory manner.
According to the project manager of the IGR project, Siaka Ouédraogo, USAID, through IGR, aims for positive impacts through the trained CSOs, achievements, contributing to the construction of stronger, resilient local institutions and contributory to the actions of development at the local level.
The project essentially has three objectives. Strengthening the capacities of the various municipalities of intervention in order to offer quality services that meet the needs of the communities, strengthening the capacities of CSOs so that they are better equipped to advocate, because the project advocates peaceful means to make pleas, and the creation of frameworks for consultation between stakeholders.
The technical advisor to the governor of the Hauts-Bassins region, Boubié Ido, president of the closing ceremony of the work, praised the relevance of this training for the benefit of CSOs in
the region which, from his point of view, is of of capital importance.
‘CSOs must be well equipped for their roles,’ he suggested.
Consequently, this training strengthens their capacities on monitoring issues with governance actors to create synergy between the actors.
This is why he thanked the American agency for its ‘unwavering’ support through the IGR project.
‘We are grateful for this fruitful collaboration,’ he said.
Boubié Ido invited participants to put into practice the knowledge acquired during this workshop and to continue working together to promote the interests of fellow citizens and to advance causes that will strengthen the well-being of communities.
For Issouf Coulibaly, a training participant thanked the organizers.
For him, this workshop will be very beneficial for everyone. As a reminder, the Inclusive Governance for Resilience Project in Burkina Faso funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
It has been implemented by Creative associates internation
al since July 2021.
Source: Burkina Information Agency