NGO implements urban governance project in Blantyre city

MALAWI: To contribute towards improving the service delivery by Blantyre city council to its residents, a non-governmental organization under the banner Concerned Youth Organization ( CYO ) is implementing an urban governance project in the city called Building an active citizenry for accountability and transparent urban governance.

The project aims at engaging the Blantyre city residents, media professionals, religious leaders, organization leaders, and other stakeholders to train them on what good urban governance is as well as enabling them to understand what service charter is all about.

Another aim of the project is to monitor the implementation of the Blantyre City Council service charter to the residents as it is stipulated in the charter.

Speaking to the residents during one of the project training at Blantyre City Council offices on Thursday, the organization's Chief Executive Harvey Chimaliro said the training is very important to the residents and community members in such that they will equip them with knowledge on how they can engage with council leaders on the issues of development in their communities.

“The training is very important to the residents, community members, fellow organizations, and others who play a great role in the development of a nation. Remember, we are living in a democratic government where there is the promotion of good governance, accountability, and transparency, so it is important that the residents know issues of development to fully engage with their duty bearers and community leaders such as MPs and Councillors for proper service delivery," said Chimaliro.

He said the training imparts knowledge to the citizens on service delivery, most especially those who live in urban areas.

“Through the training, citizens can question where there is no transparency and accountability in terms of service delivery by the councils. We want residents to feel satisfied with the services they receive from the councils," he said.

Chimaliro said since the project started this year, they have achieved a lot of things in the communities of Blantyre city.

He said, recently, they had a monitoring visit to appreciate the service delivery in the markets and actions being taken by the citizens including market vendors to ensure satisfactory service is delivered as stipulated in the service charter.

In her remarks, one of the project beneficiaries at Kachere market Olive John commended CYO for the training, saying as the citizens, they will now be able to question council where there is a lack of service delivery implementation.

" We are very lucky to have these training as they are eye-openers for the implementation of the public service delivery to us citizens. Through this training, we are now able to question the council to improve their services. At first, we were just staying quiet without knowing that we also have the right to express our views on issues of public service delivery by the council. We say thank you CYO for the training," she said.

During the training, Blantyre City Council through its representative Adrian Mpinganjira also had time to brief up the residents on what the service charter is all about.

Mpinganjira said the service charter is a set of works that are to be done by the council in every city of Malawi. He said these include Health Promotion, Education, Engineering works/Construction, Roads Maintenance, infrastructure development, and distribution of land to the city residents.

Building Active Citizenry For Accountability and Transparency Urban Government Project is being implemented with financial support from Tilitonse Foundation. It is being carried in the two wards of Mapanga and Mkolokoti.