~~ ~~ uKaid from the British people Governance, Accountability, Pa1ticipation and Performance (GAPP) Program Voices From The Field A Collection of short stories on improved service delivery in Uganda through systems strengthening and increasing citizen participation in local governance September 2017 Table of Contents I. Strategic Engagements Improve Access to Education in Patwol village, Gulu district ............................. 7 2. Duty bearers embrace accountability dialogues ................................................................................................ 9 3. Enabling Citizens to Effectively Engage in Local Government Budget Processes .................................... 10 4. Citizen Involvement in Improving the Quality of Water in Nebbi distric ................................................ 12 5. Improving Community Services Through Joint Ef.. ......................................................................................... 14 6. Grassroots Communities Mount Pressure for Better Services .................................................................. 15 7. CSO Mounts Pressure on School to Construct Ramps for Children with Disabilities ......................... 17 8. Government Improves Health Services Following Pressure From Community ..................................... 18 9. Reducing Teacher Absenteeism through Provision of Accommodation Facility ..................................... 20 I 0. Strategic Collaboration results in Safe Drinking Water for Ruchuko Primary School. ..................... 22 I I. Bridging the Service Delivery Gap between Communities and Governments ................................... 23 12. Stakeholder Collaboration Improves Health Services in Butiaba Sub-county ..................................... 25 13 . Combined Efforts Improve Health Service Delivery in Masindi ............................................................. 26 14. Fifty Persons With Disabilities Aided to Benefit Directly from Wealth Program .............................. 28 15. Increased Local Revenue Improves Services In Lower Local Governments ....................................... 31 3 Acknowledgements The Governance, Accountability, Participation and Performance (GAPP) Program extends gratitude to all those who have, in one way or the other, enabled it to partake of the stories contained herein. Appreciation is extended to all participating grantees, the communities, institutions, and local governments that are contributing to positive change in service delivery. Gratitude is further extended to USAID and DFID for supporting the program and to RTI International for providing the opportunity for the GAPP Program to be implemented. Thank you, as well, to all the teams that were engaged in implementing, documenting, compiling, editing, and generally putting this piece of work together. With concerted effort it is possible to improve service delivery in Uganda from one level to a higher one. 5 Voices From The Field A Collection of short stories on improved service delivery in Uganda through systems strengthening and increasing citizen participation in local governance 6 I. Strategic Engagements Improve Access to Education in Patwol village, Gulu district The village is the lowest administrative unit in Uganda's decentralized system of governance. Once services improve at the village level, chances are that this will be reflected at the higher levels. For a very long time, pupils who come from Patwol village had challenges in accessing Palaro Primary Seven School in time especially during raining seasons. The road would get clogged with water due to the poor drainage system around. Rain water had no outlet. This would make the road impassible by pedestrians, riders and drivers. Pupils and their teachers would spend some days not going to the school. They would later opt for alternative ways, like passing through the nearby bushes, of getting to the school. With support from the GAPP program, A4D, a civil society Community members working on the organization based in Gulu district, mobilized the road community and its leaders to address this problem. First .__ ________________, A4D trained selected community members - dabbed Community Development Monitors (CDMs) to track the work being done on different social service related needs. In one of their monitoring activities, the CDMs raised the issue of inaccessibility of Palaro Primary Seven School. A4D then followed it up by organizing a stakeholders meeting to deliberate on the matter. The meeting was attended by the community around the school, the school management, opinion leaders, the area Local Council I Chairperson (who is also the highest elected political official at that lower local government level) and some authorities from the sub county (another lower local government level). During this meeting, it was agreed that a proper road would be constructed with culverts to aid the drainage of running water to stop it from clogging and rendering the road impassable. The 7 sub-county would approach the district for the culverts because this was beyond their scope of intervention. The sub county would then provide the marram and the LC I of the area (Patwol village) would mobilize the community members to fix the culverts. After the meeting, A4D followed up with the sub-county authorities and maintained the communication with the community on progress on the road. Indeed the sub­ county provided the marram, the district provided the culverts and the youths in the community were mobilized to work on the road. In September 2016, the improved r oad was completed. It is now being used by the entire community of Patwol Village to smoothly connect to Palaro Primary Seven School and beyond. [REDACTED] (inset), a P.7 class pupil who comes from Patwol village explains: "previously when it rained, we could stumble on the muddy and water logged road, our uniforms and shoes would get really muddy and dirty. When it got unbearable we would have to follow Lukwiya road which is far, in order to get to school. Now with the improved road, I arrive at school early, when I am smart. Other pupils also report to school early and clean". As a result, the fixing of the culvert, the pupils now report to school o time. There is also easy movement of vehicle, motorcycles and community members to the school and neighboring villages to conduct different activities. This goes to show that organized partnerships amongst communities and their leaders can result into great improvements in service delivery. 8 2. Duty bearers embrace accountability dialogues Community Awareness and Response on AIDS (CARA) with funding from the GAPP program is implementing a two years project entitled "Enhancing good governance, accountability and transparency for improved health services in Kayunga district" The project is addressing issues that hinder citizens' participation in planning, implementation and accountability and monitoring of health sector. One of the models that CARA is applying in this project is the Facility Based Dialogue meetings. Facility Based Dialogue meetings are held at health centers as a platform for citizens to dialogue with their leaders about issues of accountability. The end users of a particular health center are mobilized to deliberate on the issues affecting that particular center. On the other hand the duty bearers are also called to respond to these issues. This is The In charge Busaana HC/11 addressing done to promote collaboration between the masses and citizens during a Facility Based Dialogue their leaders in finding workable solutions to the things that meeting affect them. Specifically, the meetings are held to address concerns about factors hindering accessibility to health services and possible solutions to address these factors. One of the recurring issues is the indifference of health workers in giving accountability to the citizens, especially those who needed services from Busaana HCIII in Busaana sub county. To resolve this issue, CARA initiated the Facility Based Dialogue meetings to create an interface between the concerned communities and their duty bearers (the leaders). Initially duty bearers perceived the intervention as harassment in the public eye. The community openly expressed their frustrations at the poor services from health centers and this did not go down well with their leaders. 9 However as the duty bearers turned up for more of these meetings, they began to appreciate the concerns raised and also used the meetings to explain why things were the way they looked. In a way, they became more accountable to the citizens. They now look forward to these meetings and turn up prepared for them. This is usually the only opportunity they have to defend their work and take positive actions on the issues raised. "We have held internal meetings amongst ourselves at the health center and we are improving on the way we render services to the masses. The negative publicity was not doing us well" says [REDACTED], the in-charge, Busaana HCIII. "During, one of our feedback meetings, we agreed that we should fully utilize the Facility Based Dialogue meetings as a platform for accountability, issue generation and creation of actionable way forwards" Said [REDACTED] - a midwife at Lugasa HCIII. CARA has so far conducted 24 facility based dialogue meetings in the sub-counties of Bbaale, Galiraya, Kayonza and Busaana reaching 1,232 citizens. It is reported that at each of these government aided health facilities, services have improved. 3. Enabling