Gaman Social Accountability (GSA)

Background

Social accountability means that the State has certain obligations towards its citizens. If people don’t know about their civil rights, it is difficult to influence political decisions and to ensure that the people in power live up to their commitments.

In Gaman there is a deep gap between the national and local politicians and the population. Power to influence political decisions is very unevenly distributed. People who are marginalized and living in poverty can improve their living conditions through reinforced democratic influence and increased ability to claim their rights.Civil society could potentially have an important function as a "watchdog" and help the people to hold the government accountable.

In order to improve the situation for the Gaman people and to strengthen a democratic culture, the GamanSocial Accountability programwas set up by the organization Gaman Social Accountability and the organizations local partner organization.

Gaman Social Accountability

GSA is a donor agency that works in Gaman, and gets funds from agencies as the EU. The organizations mandate is to work through local partners to change unfair power relations within the Gaman society. GSA funds a four year program together with five local organizations that carries out several projects. Most of the local organizations are member based.

The program aims to strengthen the citizen’s voice so that they can claim their rights from the local, district and national leaders. The program supports the district leaders to develop transparency and communication between local leaders and the civil society and the communities.

The program has particular focus on targeting women, youth, HIV/AIDS-infected people and people with disabilities because they are systematically under-represented in all kind of democratic discussions and decision-making.

Concrete projects within the program do for example concern building resources centers that can be used to increase people’s awareness on their rights, and work asa public arena for debate. Some projects do also aims to combat corruption that is very widespread in the national authorities in Gaman by bringing cases to court. Some partners do also lobby to strengthen laws and practices on governance and democracy in Gaman.

The rights holders and the environmental situation

The organizationsfocuses its work on theto the hill lands in east of Gaman. The population here mostly consists of poorfarmers. Some of the rights holders are fishermen.

The communities contain a majority of young people and 55 % are women. Most inhabitants have traditional houses often without electricity. They communities use the surrounding trees for cooking and warming. In the villages 1 out of 200 has internet and 30 out of 100 have a mobile telephone. Formal laws give the women right to their land if they become widows. In reality it is the husband’s male relatives that take over the land rights. Domestic violence is a hidden reality in the area.

The National Alliance is in power in the area, but the opposition party got increased support in the last election. However the local leaders from the majority and opposition parties cooperate well and form a power alliance. There is little transparence on any decisions and local leaders are part of the widespread corruption in Gaman. The capacity of the local leaders to achieve actual changes for the population is limited.

Civil society is quite weak in the district. In the rural areas there aresome youth clubs in a couple of villages, a network for infected by HIV and a women organization started up a few years ago. There are also farmer unions. In the cities there are some professional NGO, mostly working with lobbying.

During the last five years the drought has been much worse. It is more and more difficult to get fresh water for the population and also for the farming activities. Many blame the problem on the large cotton farmers and their extraction of groundwater through deep wells. There are some gold and other mineral assets in the area, and some extractive industries have been set up that pollutes the water and the air.

For more information on the Environmental situation, see the Handouts.

A partner organization – “Rights now!”

A partnerorganization to GSA, “Rights now!”plans a 3 year project within the Gaman Social Accountability Program. Rights now! is member based organization and focuses mostly on strengthening women.The organization claims that leaders have to take action to diminish domestic violence and increase the participation of girls in school. The organization also aims to transform one community center in the district to a Resource Center with various functions for the population in the communities in the district.

Project activities

The main project activity is to set up a Resource center in one of the community centers. The center will make it possible for the civil society organization to claim transparence and participation in the decision-making, related to the use of national resources coming to the district from the national government

The center will be a public space for debate between the citizens and district leaders. It will function as a platform for dialogue and capacity building for citizens and local and district leaders.It will also function as an information center where the citizens raise their awareness about their rights. Legal advisors will help for example widows in inheritance disputes.

The center will also facilitate the creation of networks and alliances within civil society that can speak with a strong and unified voice and support the dialogue and cooperation between the national NGOs and local civil society where the national NGO is lobbying at a national level.

The Resources centers will provide:

Information and communication services such as internet service,a library, publications, media etc.
Printing, Photos

Copying, binding
Seminars and training on human rights, social accountability, community banking, entrepreneurship, marketing skills, finance management skills etc.

The project will also mobilize the rights holders for public campaigns. On the 8th of March next year women from the organization will mobilize women and men in the district to a Forum where district leaders participates.