The MS partner, Hakikazi Catalyst in Arusha, Tanzania, has over the past few years been a strong actor in building local democracy.

Knowledge, action and change

In some villages the results of Hakikazi’s efforts to build local democracy is already visible. More villagers feel comfortable to speak during meetings and even women speak up and bring forward concerns or new ideas.

By Tina Hansen, Development Worker with Hakikazi Catalyst

14. december 2007

Hakikazi Catalyst in Arusha has over the past few years been a strong actor in building local democracy. It is Hakikazi’s belief that as a precondition for building local democracy, people need knowledge of their role, rights and responsibility in order to take action concerning their own development. Hakikazi’s approach is to empower people by giving them knowledge about government policies as well as their democratic rights and role. This knowledge leads to action through i.e. demanding governmental services and community involvement in producing for example development plans. In the end this will induce change and improve their livelihood.

Building community capacity
The Centre for Development, Learning and Action Programme (CEDLA) is a constellation of local resource centres, which provide material on government policies especially development policies. The idea is to build community capacity and knowledge to make villagers comfortable to speak up during meeting and assemblies, require information or budgets from the local government as well as bringing forward demands on service delivery.

To initiate this Hakikazi, is setting up resource centers containing plain language guides and posters on i.e. ‘Land and Natural Resources’, ‘SPILL’, ‘MKURABITA’ and ‘MKUKUTA’. These guides are a way of disseminating policies from government to community level - policy down streaming. Additional local animators are trained by Hakikazi to become resource persons in the communities who forward the knowledge gained as well as facilitate meetings with room for clarification and discussion on development policies and upcoming issues.

Visible change
To make sure that knowledge is spread, Hakikazi has put up Village Notice Boards in 12 of the villages they work in providing information about upcoming meetings, minutes and budgets or policy issues. Hence, everybody has access to information - a way to improve the transparency of what is going on in the community and local government.