Sharing experiences of a joint initiative supporting CSOs in India to improve their technical capacities and enhancing their involvement in tracking decentralised WASH budgets as well as improving their utilisation.
Published on: 18/08/2020
The Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), IRC, and WaterAid India (WAI) are jointly engaged in an initiative to track and analyse public spending for WASH at the local level. Under this initiative, they have worked with CSOs for improving their technical capacities and enhancing their involvement in tracking decentralised budgets as well as improving their utilisation. To share the experiences and learnings from this initiative, CBGA, IRC and WaterAid India are jointly organising a Webinar on August 21(Friday) from 3 pm to 5 pm (IST)
Thematic Focus
In order to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 in India, it is crucial that the present policy framework and governance architecture for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) looks beyond routine issues of infrastructure and sustainable services. For long term sustainability of the interventions, improved planning, budgeting and institutional architecture is imperative, besides attention to the availability of skills and WASH sector workers the rural local government level.
It is equally important to acknowledge the vital role of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), in ensuring community involvement and social accountability in these processes. Roles of CSOs will also be critical in working more closely with the governments at different levels, to leverage existing programmes, highlight systemic bottlenecks and ensure that the services reach the last mile. However, in the absence of requisite capacities and an in-depth understanding of the government roles, systems and processes, the engagements of CSOs remain limited on this front. Clearly, there is a need to strengthen such engagements to provide timely and effective services as well as coordination between line departments, local bodies and CSOs. This becomes even more crucial in times of a pandemic like COVID-19.
Outcomes of a recent joint initiative by Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), IRC and WaterAid India (WAI) become significant in this context. The initiative tracked and analysed public spending for WASH at the local level, and worked with CSOs for improving their technical capacities and enhancing their involvement in tracking decentralised budgets as well as improving their utilisation.
To share the experiences and learnings from this initiative, CBGA, IRC and WaterAid India are jointly organising a Webinar on August 21st 2020 (Friday) from 3 pm to 5 pm. The Webinar will bring together representatives of grassroots level organisations, national and international development organisations and Local, State and Union government representatives and officials from relevant line departments.
The key objectives of the Webinar are to:
• Facilitate a discussion among key actors on the current status of decentralized public financing for WASH services focusing on the role of the State governments and Panchayati Raj Institutions;
• Highlight the policy and procedural bottlenecks that hinder the better implementation of decentralised financing reforms;
• Discuss the potential of improved financing in the present context of COVID-19;
• Identify policy and implementation measures for improving decentralized public financing for WASH in the context of the Fifteenth Finance Commission.
Link to join the webinar: https://zoom.us/j/91236863852
Meeting ID: 912 3686 3852
To register for attending it, kindly fill this form.
More information: please write to info [at] cbgaindia.org
