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COMMUNITY SCORECARD HELPING TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN AUTHORITIES AND COMMUNITIES

Hillaria Mujawamungu,a farmer,presenting the community evaluation

Community Scorecard; increasing public participation and good governance

“I traveled all the way from Shyingiro to come and have a say in my development. It is amazingly thrilling to see our leaders justifying themselves to us. I feel empowered. I feel like our leaders will have to be more accountable from now on.”

This was stated by Hillaria Mujawamungu, a smallholder farmer; during the recently concluded interface meeting between sector authorities and local communities where they compared the evaluations they had done in the Community score card (CSC) program under the SCAB project of ActionAid Rwanda funded by the European Union, implemented by CLADHO Rwanda and CCOAIB.

Participants at the community scorecard evaluation in Muko sector

“I traveled all the way from Shyingiro to come and have a say in my development. It is amazingly thrilling to see our leaders justifying themselves to us. I feel empowered. I feel like our leaders will have to be more accountable from now on.”

This was stated by Hillaria Mujawamungu, a smallholder farmer; during the recently concluded interface meeting between sector authorities and local communities where they compared the evaluations they had done in the Community score card (CSC) program under the SCAB project of ActionAid Rwanda funded by the European Union, implemented by CLADHO Rwanda and CCOAIB.

The CSC approach is bringing together community members, service providers, and local government authorities to identify service utilization and provision challenges, and to mutually generate solutions, and work in partnership to implement and track the effectiveness of those solutions in an ongoing process of quality improvement.

 

The main goal of the Community Score Card is to positively influence the quality, efficiency and accountability with which services are provided at different levels. The core implementation strategy to achieve the goal is using dialogue in a participatory forum that engages both duty bearers and right holders. The SCAB project intends to strengthen capacities of CSOs and their constituencies towards promoting Sustainable Agriculture Policies and Citizens participatory Budgeting in Rwanda.

 

In the community scorecard which was carried out in Muko sector in Musanze district, Northern Province of Rwanda, sector leaders and local communities discussed the viability, relevance and impact of government programs like the Girinka program where the government gives cows to the most vulnerable families. Authorities promised to do better where they had failed and also got direct feedback from the local communities on the programs they had implemented.

The Muko sector Executive Secretary lauded this activity, saying that it made leaders more accountable to the people they governed, and made them closer. He appreciated ActionAid Rwanda and the European Union for this innovative method of governance saying that this would put Rwanda on the map as one of the best countries in the world soon.

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