ELBAG and You what you need to know

Economic literacy and budget
accountability for governance, elbag is a process and methodological framework
that combines organizing people, developing grassroots monitoring mechanisms
democratizing knowledge (Particularly political economy and economics) and
using participatory tools and methods for building public accountability and
transparency to initiate people centered advocacy processes. It creates space
where people can discuss economics and use it as an entry point to build
inclusive, democratic and just governance. ELBAG thus seeks to address the
disconnection between local, national and international level.

People may enter the space
constructed by the ELBAG process through various angles some enter and build
space through various angles some enter space through their concerns of
livelihood needs. Parents and often children, enter it through issues
pertaining to the education system and services. HIV positive people enter in
to it to claim their rights to health care demanding better services from the
primary and secondary level health care system with adequate ARV coverage.

Likewise women, who have been
subjected to a long lustory of exploitation and inequality, create space for
themselves by articulating and bringing to for discriminatory issues and unfair
practices bred by patriarchy such as being over burdened by household work,
economic dependency and difficulties and nominal access to other resources.
Depending upon their level of empowerment they raise related issues that are
responsible for their disempowerment.

In this way ELBAG aims to
facilitate empowerment of people, ensure participation of poor and excluded
reduce corruption, increase accountability in the processes of governance and
policy making particularly with regards to budgets formulation economic
planning and government decision making that impact there lives.

Why has ELBAG got to do this with
you? People and communities deal with economic on daily basis in their lives-in
their household’s communities and market. Economic literacy is about
politicization of this knowledge. It is about understanding how economic
processes operate, asking questions about political economic processes operate
asking questions about political economy and taking action. Economic literacy,
thus builds on existing knowledge of communities.

As decisions are made rarely
transparent and usually beyond public realm, ELBAG starts with taking
appropriate action on making the economic aspect of development more democratic
and people and people centric. In their quest for democracy and people begin to
ask many questions. Some of the most asked questions are:

  1. How
    are revenue generated?
  2. Why
    do these revenues collected by the government not find their way to development
  3. How
    are budgetary allocations made and whose priority usually counts?
  4. How
    are budgetary allocations spent?
  5. Why
    is spending information not shared?

Similarly at the local level too
people would like to ask many question with their local government why the
schools do not have enough resources to recruit teachers?  Why do the health centers not have medicine
and trained personnel? Why are employment generations not undertaken even when
these are promised by politicians? Who gains from development programs?


Titukuke Youth Win a UN-HABITAT

UN HABITAT Training in Zanziba, at Mazsons Hotel, Stone Town
George Masimba Lukwanda Titukuke Youth Coordinator on the left and Time UNHABITAT trainer on the right

Titukuke wishes to inform the
youth of Petauke and Zambia as a whole that one of our staffer who is a youth.
George Masimba Lukwanda had gone for a training trip to Zanzibar in Tanzania
over the UN HABITAT for urban youth fund grant that was awarded to the organization
in May, 2011.

The call for proposals opened to
the whole world on 15th February 2011 and closed on the 16th
April 2011. The most crucial aspect was the Eligibility check status of the
application form which had 6 parts each with 100% pass rate, which Titukuke
managed to achieve. The project, “promoting youth participation in urban
governance” was designed and developed by Titukuke program staff and youth from
the catchment areas valued at a cost of $14,000 whilst in Zanzibar Island,
George noted that over 6000 applications were submitted from all over 40
countries but only 59 were selected out of which 12 were form Africa. Zambia
had Titukuke as the only project that won the award from Petauke District in
Eastern Province.

The project is aimed at
challenging the structured cause of poverty and improving access for the youths
who lack basic rights. It is also about the promotion of basic needs without
which youths cannot survive in order to participate in national affairs. To be
implemented for a period of 12 months in 2012, the project covers 100 direct
and 3000 indirect beneficiaries. The approaches will also support CSO
initiatives that aim to increase youth forums for dialogue with public
institutions and support the efforts of member base to effectively influence,
articulate and monitor pro-poor policies in the district.

A number of specific results from
different initiatives thus designed in the project are anticipated. Titukuke
has been working in the areas of Building Local Democracy and Land Rights for
the past 3 and half years with support from MS Action Aid Denmark and have
accumulated expertise in local governance and community empowerment which
should be an advantage in highlighting local democracy issues for youths.

Details of the project shall be
disclosed at the project launch in January 2012

UNHABITAT Youth Fund Beneficiaries "Zambia, Zanzibar the host, Zimbambwe, Uganda and South Africa" and UNHABITAT Oficials

Tivka President Visits Titukuke

ThePresident of the Tivka Grassroots Empowerment Fund, Mr. Tom Bennigson and Mrs.
Laura Bennigson visited Titukuke RCDA in Petauke district on 4th July 2011.
Their visit was meant to understand more about the work of Titukuke and the
areas that they could partner in. They conducted open discussions, desk talks
and on the site visits to the secretariat, catchment areas and the Day Care

The visitors were satisfied with Titukuke current activities and future plans. They
promised to communicate and make necessary arrangements for    partnership with Titukuke after receiving some documents that they requested. Tivka Grassroots Empowerment Fund is a grant making NGO in the USA, that funds grassroots initiatives for global justice and sustainability among developing countries.

Action Aid Zambia Monitors & Evaluate Titukuke

The Action Aid  International Zambia organized a monitoring and evaluation meeting with the Titukuke Rural Community Development Association, Petauke. The Head of Governance of AAIZ, Mr. Humphrey Elakani facilitated the monitoring meeting focussing on the activities carried out by Titukuke in the first and second quarters of 2011. The Chairperson of Titukuke, Mr. Elasto Mwale, welcomed all participants of the meeting and urged them to fully participate.

Mr. Elakani, explained the objective of the meeting which according to him, was to assess the progress and achievements, challenges as well as lessons learnt in the implementation of approved 2011 work plan & budget and review the partnership agreement/project document and draw addendum where applicable. He further notified the meeting about the monitoring concept and the participatory method.

The participants were divided into two groups to review the activities carried out
by Titukuke under its Building Local Democracy and Land Rights Themes.

The first group was led by Ms. Florence Njobvu, Treasurer of Titukuke, and was responsible to review the activities of first quarter. Similarly, the second group was led by
the Titukuke Chairperson to discuss activities done in the  second quarter. final presentations were done using a review report in the given format. There followed an open discussion to clarify the achievements and outputs of activities. The Programmes Coordinator, Mr. Richard Mbachundu and the Director Ms. Getrude Soko gave their inputs to finalize the quarterly reporting matrixes.

Titukuke Women Trained in Paralegal Work

Titukuke trained 18 women and female youths drawn from 8 different women and youth clubs in TRCDA catchment areas. Women and female youths were trained in basic paralegal knowledge during a 3 days training workshop. They learnt how to mediate between conflict parties, referring clients to services of legal systems, supporting low self-esteem clients and conducting sensitization at community level, to inform and educate the public on human rights, gender based violence, family law, inheritance law, civil and criminal cases and court proceedings.

The workshop took place from the 13th to 15th May 2011. The trained paralegals,
finally drew out action plans which are being implemented in all sites. The
participants have informed the office that different clubs were sensitized in
civic education and law and that in Nyamphande area citizens were being
escorted to present cases to the police. The training was facilitated by Mr.
Richard Mbachundu, Programmes Coordinator of Titukuke RCDA and  supported with funds from Action Aid International Zambia.

The training took place at the Government Guest House in Petauke District and the participants were drawn from the six chiefdoms. Trained paralegals are implementing their skills in their communities.