2023 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"

The Municipality of Sô-Ava in Benin, organized a meeting with the partners (COSC/Sô-Ava, CPC) for the presentation of the project, the activities and the objectives to be achieved. We will make a list of volunteers from each organization and a schedule of activities and specifications and the distribution of activities for each partner involved. An exhaustive list of volunteers will be made for given activities.

We organize training for members involved or not in the accountability project (activities, objectives, medium or long-term results, etc.) A steering team, an internal monitoring and evaluation committee will be set up for the project . An audience will be requested with the municipal executive of Sô-Ava to present the project to them in order to request the convocation of the municipal elected officials to present the accountability project and the activities to them.

The municipal council convened, the project will be presented to them and solicited their support in order to achieve the results and agree together on the official launch of the project.

After this session, a series of training sessions for the revitalization of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and on the key principles of accountability, the following cross-cutting themes: gender, leave no one behind, the human rights-based approach, the management of conflict-sensitive projects, quality standards. This training will enable CSOs to have the notions and techniques of sensitizing grassroots populations and the tools on cross-cutting themes to be developed in awareness campaigns.

After the CSOs, it will be the turn of the municipal elected officials who will be trained on accountability in order to demonstrate their desire to bring the mayor not only to manage well but to exercise control over the agents and managers of social services to cope well at the request of citizens. They will be prepared for this purpose in radio broadcasts and other project activities.

We will move on to the creation of a first website for the town hall of Sô-Ava, the creation of an e-window and the development of NTIC applications (E-democracy, Fluicity, CitizenLab, WhatsApp for the exercise of accountability in the municipality of Sô-Ava.Then advocacy and awareness campaigns will be launched for elected officials and TFPs on the needs of people with disabilities, young people and women in the municipality.

In turn, the ACEPs and COGECS will be trained on standards and qualities. A major citizen awareness campaign will then be launched through CSOs, municipal elected officials and other organizations throughout the municipality. These campaigns will be supported by study materials produced by Advocacy and its partners.

The municipal council will be convened again for the adoption of a draft decree on accountability, including the establishment and operation of the Communal Framework for Consultation on Accountability (CCCR) composed of the City Council, the representative of CSOs, the delegation of SMEs, COGECS, ACEP, ACPE of Sô-Ava.

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