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As hundreds of councilors across the country took office in 2015 after successful being voted in by citizens, one thing that had great potential to delivery was the lack of knowledge especially among the newest councilors.
While the government had recently stopped budget previously allocated to capacity building, citizens' expectations of the leaders they had just elected was constant. Without knowledge of basic principles on council management, chance of councilors in Kiteto and Mafinga delivering to their promises was low.
Long Term Benefits
Good governance and public money accountability are the long term benefits, as for the councilors who received Social Accountability Monitoring (SAM) training will ensure proper budget planning, monitoring and implementation of the development projects and effective utilization of the public fiscal resources to bring about development, for example enhancing social service delivery like builing of the hospital and schools.
Lessons Learnt
- Partnership between the government and CSOs enhances development in the country, the SAM training provided by Policy Forum, helped to build capacity of the councilor who are key actors in implementing development at local level.
- Capacity building to local leaders impacts the development at community level as they understand their roles and responsibilities, results to proper management and allocation of public funds and resources for development
- There is a need for the government to allocate certain amount from the national budget to train the leaders at local government level to ensure effectivenes in implementation of the development projects at local level.