From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna
In furtherance to its commitment to Open Government Partnership (OGP), Kaduna State Government is working towards validating strategic action plans, since 2018 it implemented two state action plans.
This was discloses by a member of the Coalition for Association for Leadership Peace and Empowerment and Development (CALPED) and Kaduna Local Government Accountability Mechanism, Yusuf Goje yesterday, in Kaduna, during a meeting held to validate documents that will enhance government and civil society partnership.
Goje, said Kaduna State since 2018, has been part of the OGP, a global commitment of good government and civil society to carry out reforms that will strengthen transparency, accountability responsiveness, and citizen engagement in the governance process.
He added that the program is expected to help them reflect on critical areas that would birth reforms so that together they can work towards delivery.
“The program is to validate the documents so that both government and civil society can agree that this document reflects the reforms that together they will work towards delivery, so this is part of the cooperation process that it’s a critical central principle sector of the OGP mechanism.
“Kaduna State so far, has implemented two state action plans and we are currently in the process of validating the third action plan which has five commitment areas that the government and civil society have made in intense of open budget contracting, citizens engagement, service delivery in health and education and also strengthening social protection system”, he said.
In her remarks, Hadiza Umar, from OGP, State’s Action Plan, 2 (SAP) said the activities of civil societies in Kaduna State have been able to put the state not only on a national level but on the global map.
Hadiza said, “For Kaduna, we are targeting five commitment areas which are the budget and contracting citizens engagement, social protection health and education and so far we have done our best because during our time we were able to achieve relevant milestones and also we were able to put Kaduna on the map.
“More so, we were able to open more doors for civil societies to engage government, especially looking at the fact that we now have a public hearing that citizens can interact and the institutionalization of community development charter budget and processes and we also have the legislative being interested in what we are doing.
“The Open Government Partnership has gone beyond the former government and the current administration has also embraced the OGP and Kaduna has not only just been on the national map but also on the global map for the successes that we have achieved”.
