Project News

One of the major outputs of the project is to bring the concept of identifying and encouraging existing Community Initiatives^[1] (CIs) to the mainstream in the LGAs nationwide, with an established operational mechanism.

The rationales for LGAs to support CIs are:
1) LGA alone cannot provide all necessary services to all communities (financial and human resource restraints)
2) CIs enable LGAs to provide more services with less budget.
3) Therefore, supporting CIs is one of the solutions for LGAs to empower community people and provide better services to the communities.

In an attempt to develop an operational mechanism for LGAs to identify existing CIs, the project has conducted the following activities so far.

Mr. Mramba (O &OD team member, person standing) giving comments.

1. One-day meeting with District Planning Officers

The project conducted a one-day meeting on January 22, 2016 with District Planning Officers (DPLO) and economists from 9 target LGAs (Bagamoyo, Kisarawe, Morogoro, Ulanga, Kilombero, Kondoa, Hai, Siha and Same Districts) to discuss the importance and benefits of CIs which LGAs can enjoy if LGAs focus on community initiatives in planning and budgeting.

Participants of the meeting also discussed formats as working tools to collect and compile information on community initiatives, which Ward Executive Officers (WEOs) and Village Executive Officers (VEOs) are expected to use.

Group work during WEO/VEO training in Same District

2. One-day workshops for WEOs and VEOs on Identifying CIs

As the follow-up activities of the meeting, the project conducted a series of one-day trainings for WEOs and VEOs in Kondoa, Siha, Hai and Same District Councils, as well as Dodoma Municipal Council in the third week of February 2016.

The training was designed to give practical skills to WEOs and VEOs to fill in the formats through group works.

The participants agreed to utilize the formats to collect information of actual cases of CIs in their respective areas. In some districts, the filled formats have been compiled already by DPLOs. Currently the project is coordinating with the DPLOs to revise the formats based on comments from WEOs and VEOs who are the actual users of the formats.