The Advanced Community Evaluation Capacity Building Program- Background

3. The Advanced Community Evaluation Capacity Building Program- Background • The advanced program represents the second intensive phase of an introductory civic engagement program that targeted 151 of the poorest villages in 6 governorates (April 2011-). • The introductory program included a two-day workshop on participatory community evaluation providing participants with basic understanding of the Community Service Evaluation concepts and tools and thus enabled them with very basic skills on the use of simple tools such as Community Score Cards. • The SCC realized that few village groups were eager to take more of an active role in evaluating their basic services and a two-day introduction was not enough. • In February 2012, the SCC launched a four week hands-on coaching/training capacity building program that would target 24 villages of the 151 villages (representing 24 local units in the 6 governorates-two parallel workshops at a time) • These 24 villages and their representatives (8 out of 15 introductory participants) are selected by virtue of a transparent criteria of readiness and performance based on an assessment framework by trainers and SCC staff.

4. Our vision for the Advanced Program creating and cultivating a culture of social accountability on the grass-root village level through Building a NEW constructive forward thinking model for consensus building  BETWEEN service providers and the community on improving basic services Provision

5. Objective • The program is working towards empowering the village citizens to take an active role in evaluating and improving basic service delivery of the most undeveloped service through: • upgrading the evaluation groups Knowledge and skills in developing and applying and the community score-card tool to conduct community service evaluations , recommending improvements and monitoring their implementation The 8- member Evaluation Groups include: 1.representatives of local NGOs, 2.community leaders • 3. Female leaders • 5. Service providers • 6. Youth (50% of the team have to be below 35 years of age) • These village evaluation groups  would act as indigenous/internal Evaluation bodies that evaluate and provide recommendations /interventions for improving services and monitoring the implementation of these interventions.

6. How? A four-week coaching/hands-on training program

7. Program Partners • Village Evaluation Team • Partner NGO • Village Community • Service providers • SCC team • Training Consultants

8. أService is delivered in an acceptable and respectful fashion relevant to recipient culture and expectations Basic Rights standards Service is available to all Service is accessible to all Availability Accessibility Acceptability Service is provided with adequate quality Service provision is consistent with the same good quality Quality Sustainability

11. الخطة التفيذية المقترحة

12. To date Since February 2012 to date: • 7 village groups were formed • 7 Community Evaluations have been conduced -1 in Sharkeya; 4 in Minya (4 villages in 4 local units in the Center of malawi) and 2 in Qena (One village in a local unit in Deshna and Abu Tesht Centres) and two scheduled by the end of 2012. • 6 out of which selected the drinking water service and one selected the basic school. • Two review meetings on the methodology, manual content and results review with Trainers were conducted and some lessons learned drawn.

13. Some good news • Some positive behavioural shifts were observed: • Village Evaluation group are having more of an open channel with top decision makers on the governorate level and taking ownership with regards to pushing for the interventions needed have been observed. • Decision makers are more receptive. • Service providers on the village level are more cooperative. Some short-term recommended interventions are currently being implemented: • In a Minya villages, evaluation group representatives are regularly included in quality rounds by the water company taking samples for analysis. • Evaluation groups also in Minya are working together with the local NGO to help underprivileged families with installing water meters and constantly in-direct contact with the water company to schedule payments for water bills.

15. Problem is? Some recommendations were reported as unattainable by the evaluation groups despite initial commitment on the part of decision makers at the community dialogue. These interventions required: central decisions, heavy resources and intense lobbying.

16. ANew Social Accountability Model (3) On the national level A national Workshop with decision makers SHOWCASING (2) On the District level CAPACITY DEVELOPMENY Representatives from the below groups (special focus on youth) (1) On the Village level Natural leaders Youth,Service providers NGOs Natural leaders Youth,Service providers NGOs Natural leaders Youth,Service providers NGOs CAPACITY BUILDUBG

17. Increasing the Demand for better service delivery Strengthening the supply for better service delivery The new model Building Capacities Providing the right entry point to better service delivery Provide a new model for social accountability

18. For more information, contact the Social Contract Centre www.socialcontract.gov.eg scc@idsc.net.eg 0756 / 2971 / 3198 2792 202+