Name of Programme:

Responsiveness of Union Parishads through Social Accountability (RUPSA)

Governance Performance Monitoring was such a project undertaken in April, 2007 by JJS in accordance with its organizational mission and theme. To reach the organization’s mission the proposed second phase of the project is designed to establish poor people’s rights on social initiatives like VGD card, Widow Allowance, Older age Allowance and Disability Allowance undertaken by the local government. Working with the community, JJS experienced and identified some problems of Union Parishad like the following: inadequate capacity of UP chairman and members, lack of proper follow up & monitoring system regarding the social initiatives, poor participation of marginal people in the beneficiary selection process, inadequate information access of the poor people on the social initiatives, lack of transparency and accountability and responsiveness of local government to community people where poor people’s access to social initiatives and services are denied.
In the project duration, the project will establish an effective monitoring system to assess the performance of Union Parishad regarding social initiatives. Besides, a range of awareness raising campaign activities will be performed in order to raise poor people’s voice claiming their rights on services. After ending the project, community people will be capacitated and some self-driven, volunteer body will be developed who will regularly monitor the performance of Union Parishad regarding social initiatives. On the other hand, UP bodies and other officials will be skilled and strengthened through training. UP Members and Chairman can learn how to select stakeholders for providing services through proper participation and then they will also learn about the attributes of good governance while being in the process of practicing good governance in their institution.

District	Upazila	Union	Population Coverage
Khulna	Khulna	Batiaghata	Number of unions : 7 (Vandercot, Baliadanga, Amirpur, Jolma, Batiaghata, Gongarampur, Shurkhali)
		Rupsha	Number of unions : 5 (Ayjgati, Srifoltola, Naihaty, T.S.Bahirdia, Ghatvogh )
	Bagerhat	Fakirhat	Number of unions : 8 (Fakirhat, Mulghar, Noldha Mouvog, Bahirdia Mansha, Piljang, Lakhpur, Suvodia and Betaga

Total beneficiary & stakeholder: 29761

Goal
Poverty reduction through accelerating the practice of right and good governance in the social services by Union Parishad

Purposes
Practicing good governance and establishing poor people’s rights in social services through reducing the obstacles faced in the implementation process.

Project Outcomes

1. The conscious poor communities are enjoying access to all kind of social service information at the Union Parishads.
2. The skilled LEBs and other allowance related committees are selecting beneficiaries through participatory selection process.
3. The civil society along with the aware poor communities of the project area is monitoring the social service provider’s performance efficiently

Major Activities:

1. Developing database & Information corner in UP
2. Capacity Building of LEBs & Community Change makers
3. Participatory beneficiaries’ selection of Social safety net program
4. Local & National level Advocacy
5. Arranging work-experience sharing at national level
6. Develop & distribute of IEC materials
7. Arranging regular public hearing, Cultural show & wall painting.
8. Issue based human chain/ Rally
9. Staff Capacity Building & Cross learning visit

Project-1

Name of Project: Participatory Formulation of Citizens’ Charters in Selected Service Delivery Institutions

Background:

The present government is committed to introduce Citizens’ Charters in public agencies. The election manifesto 2008 of the ruling party says, “To establish peoples’ right, citizens’ charter will be introduced in every department”. During the rule of last Care taker Government, almost all the ministries and most of the public agencies formulated Citizens’ Charters following an order issued from Chief Advisor’s Office in June 2007. The initiative, however, has not yet been proved to be successful to bring any remarkable change in the public service delivery. One key reason of this is the top down approach in which the Charters were produced without any involvement of the local-level service providers as well as service recipients. Moreover, the Government introduces this concept without any previous experience and undertaking any pilot project. This is a felt need, therefore, to pilot participatory formulation and implementation of Citizens’ Charter in a smaller number of institutions to gather experience and learn lessons based on which other Charters could be modified. NGOs can play a significant role in this process by engaging the service providing institutions, mobilizing people, publicizing the charters and providing other technical supports. Manusher Jonno Foundation along with its partner JJS are interested to assist the government jointly by undertaking pilot program of participatory Citizens’ Charter formulation so that lessons can be derived for further replication.

Goal:

The overall Goal of the program is to initiate policy advocacy for wider replication of model Citizens’ Charter in order to ensure improvement of governance and quality of service delivery agencies particularly Local Government institutions.

Purpose

The Purposes:is to develop a model of Citizens’ Charters through formulating Charters in selected local service delivery agencies Union Parishads) engaging relevant service recipients and providers

Outputs:

• One institution specific Citizen’s Charter ( in UPs ) developed in a participatory way
• Service quality of one service delivery institutions improved in terms of clients’ satisfaction.
• Service recipients are (community people) aware about the rights and responsibilities.
• Lessons derived for doing advocacy for wide replication of the participatory Charter model.

Major Activities

1. Baseline survey, Inception meeting, orientation & Quarterly task force meeting.
2. Interface Meeting among authorities and communities,
3. Citizen Charter finalization & Billboard preparation and set up
4. IEC materials Development
5. Citizens’ Charters effectiveness monitoring
6. Cutting edge staff Orientation
7. Project lunching Meeting with district Level, Press Conference on Bill board inauguration
8. Experience shearing workshop at national level

Geographical coverage

Targeted beneficiaries

Duration:

One year (1 July 2010 – 30 June 2011)

 

Project-02

Name of Project: Affiliated Network for Social Accountability in South Asia Region (ANSA-SAR)

Corruption, miss-governance, lack of accountability is the common scenario in social safety net programs like Vulnerable Group Development (VGD), Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF), Old-age Allowance, Widow Allowance, and Disability Allowance are also exposed to corruption and poor governance. Most common types of irregularities in distributing safety net benefits are Many Union Parishads lacks the knowledge about policy of safety-net program (Social Services) and its implementation process.
In view of the above situation the social safety-net monitoring project is being implemented by JJS, a local credible NGO, in 9 Unions of Fakirhat Thana under Bagerhat district.
Project duration: April 2010 – March 2012 (Two Years)

Project Goal:

Reduction of Poverty and social vulnerabilities through ensuring poor and disadvantaged people’s better accesses to services particularly safety net

Project Objectives:

• To promote accountability of 5 Union Parishads’ safety net services targeted people through introducing social accountability tool
• To mobilize and capacitate 100 number of community people and building 25 of social auditors of 5 unions for monitoring services of safety net provisions in order to ensure service standards and better targeting
• To present policy recommendations based on field experiences involving relevant local and national level departments and ministries responsible for safety net provisions.

Total Beneficiaries & Stakeholders: 3880

Project Area

District	Upazila	Union	Total
Bagherhat	Fakirhat	Bahirdia Mansha, Mulghor, Piljong, Betaga & Suvodia	5