Budget: Governance dev partners train CBAs on community development charter in Kaduna
In a bid to make the locals actively involved in budget processes and tracking, Kaduna State Governance Implementing Partners (KSGIP) are training Community Based Associations (CBAs) on Community Development Charter (CDC).
CDC is a tool, a written document containing the development need(s) of a community listed in communal priority as inclusively agreed by all groups in the community/Angwan which can be used to engage government at all levels on budget implementation. The training will cut across the 255 political wards of Kaduna State beginning with Kaduna North senatorial district in batches.
This scale up of community development charter capacity building was born out of the move by the kaduna state government through its planning and budget commission to institutionalizing the CDC, through its budget call circular, making it the first state to be so doing.
Speaking at the venue of the training in Zaria on Tuesday, State Project Manager, Mobilization for Development (M4D), Hannatu Ahuwan hinted that, the need for community people themselves to identify and present their priorities to government in written and ready to engage the government on the implementation of those priorities as time go by, inspired development partners to put their resources together for the training.
According to her, “we are here Zaria to train CBAs from Kaduna North senatorial zone on community development charter. We have representatives of the CBAs working in the local government areas within the zone partaking in this training which is in two parts.
“DFID governance partners in kaduna state, sets to train community based association from the 255wards in the 3 senatorial zones in kaduna state”, she said.
Also speaking, Voice to the People (V2P) Kaduna State Partner and Executive Director, Aid Foundation, Emmanuel Bonet said, the collaborating organizations who are working in similar area are putting their resources together to achieve two things; harmonize process of development charter to make it one and to be able to cater for at least one person per ward with a model that will help such a fellow steps down the training to others within each ward using community based associations (CBOs).
“This training would ensure that all CBAs from the 255 wards in the 3 senatorial zones have the capacity to step down the CDC formation process to its other CBO.
“That will help them to collaborate to conducting town hall meetings at the community/LGA level to forming the CDC for the local government budget formation, that would commence December 2017 – January 2018.
“The Training of the CBAs would be conducted in batches for 3 weeks in the three(3) senatorial zones in kaduna state”, he narrated.
This would ensure that kaduna state do not just only be the 1st state to institutionalized this process, but also add to the open government partnership (OGP) commitment 6 indicators towards reducing citizens apathy to participation in governance by establishing the 1st citizens local government budget since the establishment of LGA in Nigeria.
The collaborating partners for the training are Mobilizing for Development (M4D), Action (SCEEP) Aid, Christian Aid project in Kaduna called V2P and Planning and Budget Commission (P&BC).
POSTED BY EDITOR