CTAP LQ2

Yes, mm.

Hi, my name is JorGE flores and I worked at

lower integrity.

We are working with connected development and budget in the

COVID-19 transparency and accountability in Africa project.

In this project, we're trying to improve how African governments

are using public resources in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

And trying to make sure that governments are better prepared,

prepared for being able to use political forces in effective

ways for the economic recovery and moving forward if there

are any other kind of crisis or disasters that happen.

The project is being implemented with partners in several countries

in seven countries in Africa.

And we are trying to build coalitions in each of

these countries and at the Pan African level.

So one of the learning questions that we have is

to what extent does COVID-19 affect countries, strategies for developing

local transparency and accountability coalitions and what we're seeing is

not that surprising.

Basically, we're seeing that there are restrictions two in person

meetings and those restrictions are affecting how partners go about

building coalitions.

So we have seen several different approaches, so just having

hybrid meetings with people online, people in person in different

places. We have also seen a really high increase in

the use of social networks and other and our tools

like that.

And also the good old one on one person contacts

are going to different organizations and starting conversations one on

one with others.

So you avoid having the big gatherings, but you also

get to kind of conclusions and action points to move

forward. The other thing is that finding a specific opportunities

for collaboration or all COVID-19?

It's hard because it requires changing the narratives because it

affects offer all of our lives in many different ways.

So there are people focus on some of the sectoral

things such as a education or health.

Other people are more interested in the economic impact and

how to deal with that.

And there are many different ways in or conversations that

are happening.

So given that angle is about transparency and accountability and

how governments are getting and using public resources, we're finding

ways to or exploring ways to connect those narratives with

transparency and accountability and with dialogue and collaboration with the

government. And we're also seeing a challenge that has been

around for a while and that is likely to continue

existing, which is the closing of space.

But we're seeing what's happening now that inco it times

many governments are reacting in harsher way.

So for instance, we have the twitter band that Nigeria

just implemented and that has really important implications for how

partners engage others and engage the government.

And we also have the kind of self censorship that

the close space causes in people, how you are.

You really don't want to speak bad about your government

or criticize what your government are doing.

So you have to try to find other collaborative ways

or more targeted and strategic ways to engage in the

public dialogue well.

But that's what we have been seeing while implementing the

project. But now I want to talk about where do

we start?

So where we're partners before starting this project?

And what we have is that the full network of

partners in the these seven countries includes around 100 organizations

at the country level, at the global level, at the

regional level and in in in Africa.

And you can see in this network map basically that

the notes represent the color of the notes represents the

country that we're talking about.

The size of those circles represents the relevance of the

organization in the network.

So how many connections go through them?

And the lines that connect the circles represent the strength

of the collaboration between the organizations.

So you can see right now that the network is

no sardines, that there are no so many links between

countries between organizations in different countries and that the strong

networks happened between the core partners and the main partners

in each country, but the connections with other organizations in

the same context are still not as strong.

Our hope is to see some changes in this, but

I will get to that later.

The other important thing to see is who is in

this network.

And this matters because the this can open opportunities for

for instance engage in government or for help finding allies

immediate or the private sector.

What we can see is that at the start of

the project, the networks is mostly composed by civil society

organizations and this is something that is likely to continue

happen. But we want to continue diversifying the type of

stakeholders and the type of engagements that we do in

the different countries and at the regional and local level.

And finally, at their way to look at this network

is a is looking at the level at which the

organizations in the network work.

So what you can see is that most of these

organizations are at the national level to focus on a

particular country.

But we already started with some good level of regional

and global level organizations that can make connections to other

conversations bit at the regional organizations in Africa or the

global level organizations.

And this is quite important because it will enable us

to tap into the efforts and support that those global

and regional organizations and institutions are bringing are providing two

countries and to make sure that this can also be

connected to the national effort and we can achieve better

results. So basically what we have seen is the challenges

that we're seeing and where our network started.

So what's next?

What are we trying?

Basically, we're going to summarize it in three points.

We have that what we want to be doing is

more targeted engagement and advocacy at the country level.

So country level partners are gonna stand are going to

be having more in country meetings too, to discuss with

others to find those narratives that can bring people together

and promote action and original and global efforts are also

going to put a spotlight in the country so we

can enable that coordination and collaboration to happen more.

The second thing that we want to see happen is

more across country learning.

So we will be promoting more exchange of lessons and

experiences across country partners in the network, the main ones

and the organizations that they are working with to try

to find opportunities to a find new ways to advocate

by new things that you can try in their context

and document that process and your lessons later on.

And the third thing is stepping into regional and global

opportunities. So we want to really be more aware of

how global organizations are providing support to governments, what conditions

are and that what incentives and in there and being

able to tap into those to promote behavior change in

the government and in the people so they can demand

more accountability and have improved and more effective service delivery.

Uh That's it on learning question too.

And I hope that you look at some of the

other things that we have in the in the city

project. You get to see the website and you get

to learn more about our work and just reach out

to us if you want to learn more or talk

more about this.

Thank you.

CTAP LQ2

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