• Thu. Mar 28th, 2024

Assessment of the achievements of the citizen participation and conflict prevention project

ByWebmaster

Jan 16, 2023

MUYINGA January 16th (ABP) – The representatives of the beneficiaries of the project “Citizen Participation and Conflict Prevention in Burundi (PCPC-Birandaba), associated with the representatives of the administration where the said project is carried out, are unanimous in appreciating the quality of the activities already carried out by the consortium made of ACORD-Burundi, AFAB and FAP.

Many people took the floor to appreciate such activities, during a workshop extended to beneficiaries and administrative staff from the intervention area made up of 17 communes spread over the provinces of Kayanza, Kirundo, Ngozi and Muyinga, held on Wednesday January 11, 2023, led by the NGO ACORD-Burundi.

In his opening remarks, the governor of Muyinga province, Mr. Jean Claude Barutwanayo, recognized the effort of PCPC-Birandaba in the transformation of the community, with a view to strengthening social cohesion and promoting local development. That provincial authority did not forget to demand tangible results for the conduct of future activities. He expressed the wish to strengthen social cohesion by setting up faithful houses in order to reduce the household conflicts that make headlines in a lot of communes of that province.

He also commended the approach taken by ACORD-Burundi and its partners to restructure community leaders into associations to better carry out the activities of PCPC-Birandaba. Mr. Barutwanayo invited those groups to be auxiliaries of the grassroots administrative officials and not trippers for the latter.

The PCPC-Birandaba program coordinator, Mr. Patrice Nsabayezu, is rather reassuring.

Those leaders structured into associations that work under the different pillars of human security were set up to serve as a bridge between citizens and authority, he said.

According to the same information source, those leaders are aligned with the overall objective of the PCPC-Birandaba, which is to contribute to the strengthening of local development and social cohesion with the major concern of improving the various pillars of good governance such as transparency, fairness, accountability, efficiency, anti-corruption and others.

Different approaches have been used to achieve that goal. This involves the targeting of community leaders, the structuring of those leaders or beneficiaries into associations on human security according to the talents of each member, in food security for example, health and environmental policy, capacity building on the themes of the project or program, the establishment of restorative circles of peace, to name but a few. The proof that those groups are useful for the community is that the commune has recognized them, the PCPC-Birandaba coordinator added.

That mid-term internal evaluation workshop with the stakeholders, which was intended to be a general restitution, only confirmed the testimonies provided two weeks before, by the beneficiaries of the 17 communes, during the micro workshops organized by ACORD-Burundi, to inquire about the effectiveness and viability of PCPC-Birandaba interventions.

Concerning the rate of achievements of the project, Mr. Nsabayezu indicated: “We have not yet collected the figures, we have only made the qualitative assessment”. However, he projects that towards the end of the project, 90% of the leaders of the community associations set up, will be able to affirm that they have had a voice, a place in the decision-making process, 90% of the authorities will be able to declare that they have had the culture of reporting to citizens.

According to him, at least 60% of conflicts will be able to be settled by community services without recourse to judicial or administrative authorities.

The representatives of PCPC-Birandaba’s partners at the top, namely the Association of Businesswomen of Burundi (AFAB) and the Women Artisans of Peace (FAP), also did not hide their satisfaction with the quality of the interventions of the said program.