Governance

Links to: Reports, Policies

Governance Programme

DENIVA has for the last many years worked on governance issues with specific focus on Decentralisation as a system of local governance. As explained in the Constitution and Local Government Act, Decentralisation aims at bringing services nearer to the people while also giving the people more opportunities to influence policies that address their concerns. DENIVA recognises the fact that CSOs have an important role to play in making sure that decentralisation remains relevant to the lives of the people. There is therefore a need to understand how decentralisation works, and what kind of strategies can be put in place to enhance local government and civil society engagement. Issues of accountability, transparency and relevance require constant monitoring, documentation, and pressure for better quality governance, which DENIVA has fully embarked on.

CSOs at the local and national levels need to continue ensuring that funds and other resources at the local and national levels continue to reach the people for whom they are given. This will require thorough understanding of how budgetary allocations are done and as well as effective monitoring to ensure that the resources allocation to the social sector are well utilised. DENIVA promotes this through involvement of CSOs in local governance. However, Decentralisation is currently faced by other challenges including re-centralisation of District Chief Administrative Officers who were previously expected to report to the District Council and the role of the Council under the Regional Tier System of governance.

To do this, DENIVA has embarked on a number of studies at local government level including one on Women Councillors 2002 the effective political participation of women in local governance. The study findings of the various reports are used by DENIVA to play a leading role of initiating partnerships involving local governments, central government, the wider civil society and the development partners. DENIVA has also done a number of documentaries in the area of governance that can be obtained on request from the Secretariat.

DENIVA’s other areas of in interest in 2006-2009 include monitoring of the national political governance institution – Parliament. This will be based on promoting public accountability by policy makers to ensure that justice and fairness are observed as key indicators in the policy making process. DENIVA will also embark on promoting CSO participation in policy making through submission of contributions to the different parliamentary committees. Secondly, DENIVA hopes to provide continued support to CSOs involved in peace building and conflict resolution in the war affected areas of Northern and Eastern Uganda.

The above processes will then feed into the Regional (East African Community) and the several International advocacy movements.