NGORA today met with a number of NGOs to discuss citizen participation in order to improve NGO work in the country.
During the meeting, the CEO for NGORA Voice Mhone said citizen participation is crucial and starts at the local level. He therefore requested the NGOs to partner with the Authority to empower Area Development Committees (ADCs) to promote the participation of citizens in NGO work.
“NGORA is implementing the MW2063 Enabler two; effective Governance Systems and Institution. As part of making sure that there are proper governance systems around NGO programs/projects in the communities, the Authority is profiling and empowering ADC leaders in order to improve service delivery and sustainability of NGO projects. The empowerment is also to encourage citizen engagement in NGO work and bring a sense of ownership in the projects being implemented,” he said.
In his remarks, Deputy Director of Planning in the Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare Geoffrey Chimwala said that the empowerment of ADCs will lead to the acquisition of credible data by the government, NGOs and other stakeholders and this data will assist them to make credible decisions.
“Credible data is important for the making of credible decisions by NGOs, Government, NGORA and other stakeholders and ADCs are important to this so that they should provide the required data,” he said.
Currently there is a total of 363 ADCs and an estimated number of 4,000 ADC members in the country.