The presidential hall of the Palais de Congrès in Niamey hosted this Wednesday, October 19, 2022, the opening ceremony of the National Forum for the capitalization of initiatives and approaches to animation and community engagement in emergency and development actions in Niger. . Organized by the Ministry of Regional Planning and Community Development with the support of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) thanks to funding from German cooperation, the foundations of this forum, which will last 3 days, are as an opportunity for the various stakeholders to rethink community and citizen engagement in order to provide answers to the questions of participatory governance, ownership and sustainability of development and humanitarian actions that arise in our society in a marked context by multifaceted shocks.
The opening ceremony of this Forum, placed under the high patronage of the Prime Minister, HE. Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou, was chaired by the Minister of Regional Planning and Community Development, Mr. Maman Ibrahim Mahamane, representing the Head of Government, in the presence of the Secretary General of the Ministry of Planning, the Deputy Secretary of the Governorate of the region from Niamey, Mr. Guimbé Koché Ragiou, the representative of UNICEF, Mr. Jean Claude Mubalama, representatives of international organizations, representatives of regional councils, Traditional Chiefs and Religious Leaders, central and regional officials from Ministries, representatives of Non-Governmental Organizations and Development Associations, as well as an audience of participants and several guests.
The general objective of the forum is to contribute to the emergence of citizen and community engagement favorable to the appropriation of actions to strengthen resilience by grassroots communities.
This forum will be an opportunity to reflect on the issue of ” capitalization of initiatives and approaches to animation and citizen and community engagement in progress and in the past in Niger » as part of the Program for Strengthening Community and Citizen Engagement of the Ministry of Land Use Planning and Community Development (MATDC), with a view to formulating orientations or reforms necessary for a citizen and community engagement inclined to sustainable development.
It will also be an opportunity to popularize the integrated participatory community approach called Initiative Niyya da Alkawali (INDA) which has been modeled and is currently being deployed experimentally in thirteen pilot municipalities in the regions of Maradi, Zinder, Tahoua and Diffa.
In his welcome speech for the occasion, the Deputy Secretary General of the Governorate of the Niamey region, Mr. Guimbé Koché Ragiou, considered that the subject addressed is of capital importance in a context of decentralization. integration of our country initiated since 2004. According to Mr. Guimbé Koché Ragiou, decentralization has no meaning without a flowering and enhancement of community organizations. The Renaissance Act 3 Program makes the promotion of good governance one of the priorities of its development axes. Also, this meeting also rhymes with ” the Nexus approach, humanitarian development and security which is currently in added the representative of the Niamey region, for whom the decentralized entities can take advantage of this important forum.
Community engagement: one of UNICEF’s key intervention strategies
Addressing the audience in turn, the UNICEF representative, Mr. Jean Claude Mubalama, for his part underlined that over the past decades, UNICEF has experimented with a variety of community approaches to Niger, namely: integrated management of childhood illnesses at community level, community-led total sanitation (ATPC), water point management committees, establishment of village child protection. Some of these community approaches, he specified, are already scaled up and have produced convincing results, while others confined to limited geographical areas with local supervision are still at the “pilot” stage and remain largely under-exploited and documented. Unfortunately, deplored Mr. Jean Claude Mubalama, an analysis of the situation has identified several bottlenecks that hinder the development of sustainable citizen and community engagement.
” The main challenges identified are related to the multiplicity of approaches at the community level, the weak coordination between actors, the shortcomings in local and community governance, the weak articulation of local and community planning, the relatively low level of commitment of certain communities in the management of works and the mobilization of internal resources, without omitting the challenges related to the quality of the strategies and approaches for progress or exit of the partners and the non-alignment of the approaches on harmonized quality standards said the UNICEF representative for whom, It is necessary to rethink community and citizen engagement in order to provide answers to the questions of participatory governance, ownership and sustainability of development and humanitarian actions that arise. pose to us today in a context marked by multifaceted shocks.
And to do this, said Mr. Mubalama, the institution he represents has Momentum. UNICEF’s 2022-2025 strategic framework, he said, positioned “ community engagement, and social and behavior change among the nine essential strategies for change to accelerate progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to guarantee the rights of every child.
” Holding such a forum represents a major challenge for UNICEF, which has made community engagement one of its key intervention strategies in order to strengthen its human-centered planning and put communities at the heart of the action for change, because to quote Mahamat Ghandi “what you do for us, without us, is against us” “, he continued.
The UNICEF representative ended his remarks by reiterating his institution’s commitment to support the efforts of the Government of Niger for the finalization and implementation of the Community and Citizen Engagement Strengthening Program which is part of in line with UNICEF’s future Country Program 2023-2027, which will place particular emphasis on the implementation of innovative approaches centered on communities.
A strong commitment by the State to promote the economic and social well-being of populations
In opening the work, the Minister of Territorial Planning and Community Development, Mr. Maman Ibrahim Mahamane considered that this forum comes at the right time. Indeed, underlined the Minister, the development process of Niger is marked by a strong commitment to promote the economic and social well-being of the populations through significant investments made by the State with the support of its technical partners. and financiers and NGOs/DAs. But at the end of the execution of a large part of projects and programs, he lamented, the level of ownership of the processes and results of the actions remains, for the most part, mixed and does not allow change. expected behavior.
Moreover, according to Mr. Maman Ibrahim, the approach projects developed over decades has fostered the development of certain behaviors at the community level, including: the spirit of eternal helpers or “opportunity” community leaders or organizations and poor management of community investments made.
” The consequences of all the above are that many community investments made at great expense are either abandoned, degraded or non-functional and do not give the expected positive results for the well-being of the beneficiaries. he regretted.
” This situation is aggravated by the lack of collaboration and the non-alignment of the interventions of certain partners with the priorities and planning of the State and the Communities as well as with the needs of the communities. This is why, in accordance with its attributions in terms of support for the decentralized management of development and the coordination of the interventions of NGOs/ADs, the Ministry of Territorial Planning and Community Development initiated this Forum in accordance with the recommendations formulated by the technical workshop for reflection on the appropriation of development actions by municipalities and communities organized in September 2018 said the Minister of Regional Planning and Community Development, who seized this opportunity to reaffirm the Government’s firm desire to promote the governance and legitimacy of local authorities and sustainable local development, in accordance with the guidelines of the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister.
” I would particularly like to express our gratitude to UNICEF, which has kindly provided its remarkable support for the holding of this forum. Addressed Minister Maman Ibrahim as he ended his speech launching the forum.
During this forum, which is the very first in the sub-region and which will take place from October 19 to 21, 2022, 5 panels across 5 different themes will be animated with group work. The expected results of this 03-day work are among others: the stakes of the appropriation of development actions by all actors are identified and analyzed; strategic orientations on the main pillars of ownership are formulated; recommendations on how to improve existing community engagement-oriented approaches to align them with quality standards and norms for community engagement and finally a roadmap for the implementation of the orientations and recommendations appropriation is elaborated.
Abdoul Wahab Issaka (actuniger.com)
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