Story from Sa’adatu MAINA, Damaturu
In its effort to promote transparency and accountability in governance, the Spotlight for Transparency and Accountability Initiative, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) organized its maiden workshop titled ‘Multi-dimensional capacity Building on Citizen Led Tracking’ where youths from various communities and Civil Society Organizations were trained on various topics relating to project tracking and bridging the gap between the governed and the government.
Mu’azu Alhaji Modu, the State Lead for Spotlight Initiative stated that “we train youths on multi-sectoral and multidimensional rigours where youths from diverse walks of life are trained on how to take ownership of projects in their localities and Communities”.
In his presentation at the training, Muhammad Kime delivered a lecture on a paper discussing in length the processes in which the document budget is arrived at.
The participants were also trained on the citizen Led tracking process where citizens can independently or in group track and monitor government expenditures leveraging on the Freedom of information Act enshrined in the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria.
However, Modu presented a paper showing how the participants can write an effective, accurate, and professional email report devoid of mistakes.
Considering the importance of accessing information from MDAs for tracking purposes, a paper was delivered by Zanna Samaila on how citizens can write Freedom of information request letters to Ministries, Departments, and Agencies to enable them to track projects the government intends to implement.
“This, will in no small measure promote open governance where citizens will be aware of the happenings of the system and keep both contractors and the government on their toes to avoid delays in project execution”.
According to him, social media being one of the agents of socialization, the participants were trained on how to effectively use social networking sites responsively for their advocacy campaigns using constructive criticism to promote good governance.
The participants were taken on another session regarding the safeguarding policy of an organization where the participants were trained on the ethics of engagement and the ethics of the organization on field and in the office to safeguard volunteers, beneficiaries, staff, and consultants of the organization.
The capacity of the participants was also enriched on how the budding trackers can snap photos while they are on field tracking projects. The participants appreciated benefiting greatly from the practical session on how to use the phone for taking images and videos for advocacy.
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