The Citizen-led Accountability programme (CLAP) is one of the three interconnected programmatic interventions identified under the ABEDEV Strategy 2025-2029, ‘Making Institutions in Busia Serve the Common People’. The main aim of the CLAP is to mobilise residents of the County to monitor the County Government’s and its institutions’ performance in discharging their mandate, either via the provision of public services or the design and implementation of poverty alleviation initiatives. The programme is connected to the other two interventions, i.e., the Civic Awareness Programme (CAP) and the Citizen Participation Programme (CIPP), by closing the loop between mobilisation, capacity building and follow-up action, in line with our Strategy. Whereas CAP will mobilise residents and ignite in them an awareness of their rights and obligations as citizens, the CIPP on the other hand will encourage them to negotiate decisions and commitments with the County Government directly.
The CLAP will build on these two programmes by engaging in direct follow-up of the agreed commitments and generating perspectives from residents, which shall become important for improvements and course correction in County Government programmes and initiatives. The programme will deploy tools for monitoring government performance such as community scorecards, public expenditure tracking surveys, citizen charters and social audits. These tools will create opportunities for residents to shape the performance of county institutions by providing citizen-generated data on the performance of the institutions and fostering an interface between duty bearers in the county institutions and county residents. This, in turn, shall lead to improvements in service provision, including an increase in budgetary allocation, reductions in wastage, and improvements in infrastructure and relations between service users and providers of public services.
The table below summarises some of the indicative activities, outputs, and outcomes of the CLAP. The CLAP project officer and volunteers are expected to undertake these activities frequently. The Head of Programmes is expected to follow up on the activities by referring to the key outputs and indicators emerging from them.
| Indicative Activities | Key Outputs | Indicators | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Mapping of government initiatives and projects for citizen-led monitoring |
• Lists of projects, services and initiatives to be monitored by citizens
|
• No. of projects, services and initiatives listed for monitoring |
|
2 |
Building the capacity of citizens on citizen-led accountability tools |
• Training workshops • Development of tools i.e. manuals |
• No. of workshops held • No. of residents trained in citizen-led accountability tools • No. of tools developed and in use |
|
3 |
Generating citizen-led data on government performance |
• Citizen reports on the performance of government projects , initiatives (the MCA monitoring initiatives falls here) and services |
• No. of reports developed • No. of projects, services and initiatives monitored |
|
4 |
Interface engagements between residents and duty bearers responsible for government performance |
• Joint action plans on resolving outstanding issues in government performance |
• No. of meetings held between residents and duty bearers in the County • No. of joint action plans developed |
|
5 |
Follow up activities to reinforce agreed changes |
• Outstanding issues requiring elaborate follow-up |
• No. of issues in various stages: progress, resolved, pending |
Implementing the CLAP is expected to lead to increased capacity for citizen-led accountability among Busia residents. The increased capacity will lead to increased evidence-based scrutiny and negotiation of government performance. This, in turn, will lead to reduced wastage and improved performance by the County Government, thereby supporting the Government to uplift the lives of ordinary people who rely on government services, initiatives and projects for their well-being.