The Sunday News
Shepias Dube Business Reporter
CITIZEN participation in socio-economic governance is a constitutional right as well as a means of ensuring sustainable national development, an official has said. Addressing Bulawayo residents at Nketa Hall on Friday at a one-day workshop held under the theme Enhancing Zim Asset through the Promotion of Public Accountability, Public Policy Research Institute of Zimbabwe executive president Dr Samukele Hadebe said citizens can ensure that the blueprint work by holding Government officials accountable.
“Since Zim Asset seeks among other things, poverty reduction, it offers opportunities for civic society engagement in economic governance and in championing pro-poor policies that could lead to poverty eradication. By monitoring implementation of the blueprint, citizens would be enhancing its implementation,” Dr Hadebe said.
However, he said this could only be possible when stakeholders like youth groups, women groups and businesses have an understanding and appreciation of public policy processes.
Dr Hadebe said lack of requisite information and skills on economic governance and policy processes were largely responsible for failure by citizens to call for public accountability on service delivery.
He said it was against this background that his organisation provided the necessary research based knowledge to capacitate citizens in socio-governance and development matters like Zim-Asset and budgetary processes in order to promote citizen participation and enhance public accountability.
Through its project on the Promotion of Public Accountability Programme (PPAP), PPRIZ is facilitating citizen participation and the promotion of public accountability with particular reference to Zim Asset and other economic programmes.
He said the PPAP project addresses implementation gaps in public programmes in Zimbabwe with reference to social and economic justice as a way of promoting inclusive development seminars, stakeholder consultations, media releases and policy dialogue meetings.
Meanwhile, Dr Hadebe has called on the Government to create an enabling environment which will attract investment in the country.
“The targets in the Zim Asset document are not just for those in power, everyone must be part of the process. All that is required is for Government to come up with policies and legislation that enable stakeholders to achieve the targets set,” he said.
