Accountable governance and broad democratic participation are preconditions for eradicating poverty, building sustainable communities and upholding human dignity.
Yet many countries are plagued by widespread corruption, neglect of human rights, injustice, weak economic policy and poor management of resources. Discrimination and the non-participation of minorities and women also is a large challenge.
Supporting partners
Norwegian Church Aid supports civil society partner organisations around the world to hold their governments accountable and ensure they respect, promote and fulfill their human rights obligations. Through different strategies and methods, citizens are empowered to claim their rights locally and nationally, by for example pressing the authorities to provide adequate water and sanitation, education and health care for all segments of the population.
Promoting participation
Norwegian Church Aid also works to promote political participation and non-discrimination of women and minorities; protection against violence and abuse; people-centered monitoring and alteration of policies and budgets to combat poverty; corruption-fighting measures, and improved natural resource management.
Global responsibility
Powerful international institutions and corporations also have a moral obligation to respect human rights and refrain from exploiting natural resources and labor in lesser developed countries. Norwegian Church Aid and its sister and partner organisations around the world work to challenge governments, corporations and international institutions to help make poverty history.
Our work to promote accountable governance centres around three main topics:
- Natural resource management - such as in Angola and Tanzania. We are also involved in the Publish What You Pay (PWYP) network and the Extractative Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
- Monitoring of goverment budgets and policies - such as in Brasil and South Africa
- Economic Justice - including trade, corporate social responsibility, debt and conditionality. Read more about economic justice programme here.
An example of our work
Public Expenditure Tracking System (PETS) - Tanzania
In Tanzania Public Expenditure Tracking has been defined as the process of tracking public resources from the source to the point of service. PETS is designed to empower right-holders at the grassroots level to demand right based services from relevant public bodies.
People in PETS committees are trained to read and analyse public budgets and accounts, and to monitor how financial plans are implemented. If realities on site differ from the plan (budget) and the reported expenditure (accounts), the committees have been trained on how to file complaints and secure interventions against corruption by higher level government officials. The aim of PETS is to make sure that the production of public services is maximized and that corruption with public budget resources is prevented.
Read the report Public Expenditure Tracking System/Survey (PETS): Follow the money! Accountable governance at local level (2010).