The one day knowledge sharing workshop was held on 26th January 2018 at St Joseph’s Inn virika in Fort portal and was attended by 40 participants that included program moderators, panelists, leaders of the 13 advocacy forums and media. The participants were drawn from the four (4) districts of Rwenzori Sub region including; Kabarole, Kyenjojo, Kyegegwa & Ntoroko.
‘’For the last 7 years ToroDev has been promoting public accountability for improved service delivery through live radio talk shows. The organization has been partnering with the 7 local FM radio stations to conduct live radio discussions on outcomes of improving essential service delivery with focus on rule of law, multiparty democracy, accountability and transparency of the public resources allocation processes by the national parliament’’ said David Kugonza while giving opening remarks during the workshop.
David further said, Radio talk shows are aiming at improving grassroots’ understanding of democracy, accountability and transparency to ensure that local citizens are well prepared and competent to actively engage their duty bearers.
The functionality /use of an online e-participation system ‘Me and My Leader’ (MML) http://www.mmlonline.orgthat ToroDev has been developing since 2016 was shared during the workshop. The e-participation system use a pre-paid Sms code 6115 and internet for social media participation to collect evidence based data that supports offline engagements on priority service delivery needs as reported by citizens from their respective districts. The e-participation findings will be shared with duty bearers for actions through many avenues including offline like physical accountability meetings/District local government-CSO’s forum meetings, radio talk shows, etc said David Kugonza while presenting the system before participants.
‘’Radio Talkshows plays a vital role in providing information to people which is educative since the public rely more on that information. As panelists we should always be informed on government policy framework such that we provide relevant and useful information that is educative to the public and this will create value in improving service delivery in our communities’’ said Johnstone Baguma Kumaraki, Executive director ToroDev while facilitating during the workshop. He further added that professionalism, effective communication, timeliness, should be key if we are to improve the work we do in communities and advocate for better service delivery in every sector.
Participants were taken through; public policy framework, advocacy & engagement, key guidelines about participation on radio talk shows, MML e-participation system functionality, plenary on issues that affect radio talk show, etc
“I take the opportunity to thank ToroDev for the work done in Rwenzori region And also call upon duty bearers to play our roles and responsibilities well in order to create awareness to the citizens such that they can keep leaders accountable if we are to improve service delivery in our communities,” said Honorable Enock Byakagaba, the councilor representing Bazaar ward in Fort Portal municipal council during the workshop.
“I kindly appreciate the work done by radio program moderators for mobilizing panelists who always appear on ToroDev radio Talk shows and share relevant information with the public but I urge the moderators to be independent whenever they are hosting people, they should also avoid being biased whenever citizens participate by calling in and avoid cutting them off when they are contributing to the program’’ said Jane Ahaisibwe leader of Butiiti forum in Kyenjojo district.
Some of the action points from the workshop included; duty bearers and panelists to always confirm their participation on live radio talk shows for proper program management, panelists to carry out research about the topics of discuss before appearing for the talk shows, moderators to always share topics of discussion on time to give panelists ample time to research, suggestions to promote MML e-participation system at sub county level in all the districts, duty bearers especially technical officials who seek for facilitation to appear for radio talk shows to try and request for facilitation from their superiors since ToroDev cannot afford facilitating all those officials from these districts, to mention but a few.
We are grateful to all our development partners for the technical & financial support to keep our programs running.
