governance & development	Democratic Governance
		Participatory Governance	SURPAZ

Participatory Governance

Participatory Governance: The focus of the activities of the Programme are related to micro enterprise generation and confidence building measures at community level in the South are fuelled by the knowledge that often, efforts at engaging local authorities, communities and NGO’s in the determination of needs/or implementation of initiatives are very weak or are not effective as originally envisaged. This has often been blamed on lack of consultation and information from the national and local authorities limiting the opportunity of engaging productively with their own constituency and participating in the developmental, peace and governance processes on behalf and with the entire community. SaferAfrica hopes to exponentially improve the delivery of effective dialogue between NGO’s and CBO’s, national/local government, CBO’s and communities through a series of projects in selected communities of the South commencing in South Africa and Argentina and passing on to Colombia and Tanzania before the results are formulated for the benefit of all regions that are developmentally challenged.

Activity objectives are to create a platform where communities and local authorities discuss and share information related to peace, security and development challenges. The purpose is to create a platform for social forum/dialogue where communities, NGO’s, CBO’s, local and provincial authorities discuss and share relevant information regarding social challenges such as poverty, development, peace and security. The ultimate purpose is to provide technical and capacity motivation assistance in order to improve the level of trust, good governance, democratization, peace and security in Africa and beyond.

The dynamic of this programme is to utilize the generation of micro development projects for entrepeneurs with the manifest object of poverty reduction in communities both in rural and in urban areas. The object of poverty reduction would prime and would serve as catalyst for the engagement of both civil society and local authority in pursuit of the same goal. By so engaging behind a common product, both sectors would be workshopped into obtaining enhanced degrees of trust between them. Capacity would be provided at both ends to receive and generate inputs for the common good and develop sustainable mechanism of consultation leading to common action. A second objective is to infuse these micro development projects and processes with the ability to act as training bodies for the reduction of local violence and the promotion of tolerance and partnership These same actions can also assist in the delivery of control of tools of violence such as illicit SALWs.

Activities

The type of activities to be undertaken include, among others, the following:

Developing alternative intervention strategies based on identified lessons, successes and failures of the past by CBO’s, NGO’s and communities in seeking to influence public policies.
Mobilization of existing capacity among communities through their conviction, commitment and innovative abilities to peace and development processes.
Conducting Training workshops on sustainable marketing skills for micro entrepreneurs and commencement of micro-development projects after the necessary field assessments..
Commencing a traditional culture project to link traditional artisans with each other across continents, providing them with micro development and entrepreneurial skills and incentivating the dialogue with authorities for the recognition of their work. The project would develop bilateral ties to celebrate diversity through cooperative processes and skills across countries and peoples.
Undertaking focused work with micro enterprise and confidence building at community level: Southern Africa (South Africa) and Latin America (Colombia) – the Strategic kitchen project across two continents

The activities undertaken by this programme for 2006 include:

I - Facilitating the dialogue between civil society organizations and governments at local, national or regional level and provision of skills so as to multiply efforts and maximize the use of resources in the combat of poverty and underdevelopment.

Generation of a resource mapping project piloted in South Africa (two provinces) that would generate a manual on how to map resources available and needed for micro enterprise development and poverty reduction in key communities. The outcome would be a trainer of trainer manual and the capacity thereof for communities to engage in their own needs assessment in conjunction with the local authorities. The pilot is commencing in Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa and will be replicated in Colombia (Bogota and Medellin) with a view of seeing how needs assessment varies from situation to situation prior to the generation of the manual. Plan was approved by the Provincial authorities of Kwa Zulu Natal and will be introduced to Colombia in August 2006.
Provision of micro enterprise skills capacity for the generation of employment – courses for impoverished communities have commenced an been piloted in the slums of Argentina creating work opportunities in the sectors of cooking, metal work, ornaments, leather processing and clothing manufacture. MoU with Caritas, Don Bosco and Ayudando a los que Ayudan in Argentina.

II – Provision of capacity to local NGOs and local authorities to utilize their projects as active part of post conflict and disarmament efforts fostering and consolidating peace and transitional democratic processes.

This project is gender based and involves the rolling out of the successful SaferAfrica pilot of the last two years entitled The Strategic Kitchen. The project brings together the poor in a community, offers training at micro enterprise level for the creation of food entrepeneurs, engages the use of the informal kitchen spaces at community level for training and for serving the block needs of the community, facilitates the dialogue with local authorities through invitation to the kitchen and food products and uses the space created to have women and the poor to discuss their problems with the local authorities in the kitchen space. The project promotes solidarity, community trust, awareness of community concerns, and skills development all at the same time. This project is so successful it has been replicated in Kwa Zulu natal where it was first piloted.
Now the project is opening its operations in other provinces of South Africa and commencing a similar project in Bogota with ally organization Gamma Idear (whom SAferAfricas has already trained) and in the slums of Buenos Aires (through our allies Ayudando a los Que Ayudan whom we have also already trained). MoU with Gamma Idear Colombia for delivery and MoU with Ayudando a los que se Ayudan for delivery in Argentina.

III – Promoting dialogue and skills interaction between traditional artisans in the promotion of their products and simultaneously providing capacity to local authorities to foster and allow traditional authorities and indigenous actors to express their needs and concerns.

Negotiations are underway to undertake a needs assessment and capacity building programme on behalf of indigenous peoples and traditional artisans in the province of Salta Argentina. MoU with Fundacion Cepas and provision of technical capacity to undertake the work to Cepas to implement.

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