BudgIT Foundation and Connected Development (CODE) have launched the COVID-19 Transparency and Accountability Project (CTAP).
The civic-tech non-governmental organisations, on Monday, announced that they launched a Pan-African Tracking System for all COVID19 intervention funds received and donated across 7 African countries – including Nigeria, Cameroon and Zimbabwe – to ensure proper management of COVID19 funds.
According to them, CTAP is an initiative that seeks to promote accountability and transparency through the tracking of COVID-19 intervention funds across seven African countries.
Both organisations would be leveraging their ‘Tracka’ and ‘Follow The Money’ platforms, as well as international chapters in other six focus African countries to activate a Pan-African tracking system for all COVID-19 funds received and donated to these countries.
“Retrospectively, our experience with tracking COVID19 has shown a deeply rooted systemic profiteering culture, especially in an environment that lacks accountability and civic engagement,” BudgIT’s Director and Co-founder, Oluseun Onigbinde said.
“We also observed that there is an increasing mistrust from citizens on the delivery of palliative care in Nigeria, Kenya and Liberia due to representatives who abuse the process and the absence of comprehensive citizen data” he added.
CODE’s Founder and Chief Executive, Hamzat Lawal, stated that “as nations of the world tackle the plague of coronavirus, with funding for African countries amassing in millions of dollars, it has become expedient to block financial leakages and ensure funds do not end up in personal pockets.”
“With CTAP, BudgIT and CODE will advocate for accountability, transparency, and open governance while strengthening civic awareness and ensuring that targeted governments use COVID-19 intervention funds effectively.
“The project will address the threat of lack of accountability and the effects of COVID-19 on socio-economic development” Lawal added.
In a joint statement, the organisations noted that the response to pandemics should prioritize the participation of citizens, including needs assessments and provision of palliatives, procurement and delivery of items.
They added that the primary aim of CTAP will be to drive citizens’ engagement as well as innovative capabilities of tech tools to develop an interactive portal on data relevant to COVID-19 and use these data to enable collaboration between citizen fact-checking programs and public institutions.
“Beyond the engagement sessions with focus non-profits and frontline leaders, the project will visualize and disseminate the contribution of stakeholders to the COVID-19 Relief Fund and other related programs. More importantly, requests of citizens in vulnerable areas will be itemized while both organizations’ SMS-to-web platform will be leveraged to deliver relevant data to the government and other stakeholders based on citizens’ requests.
“The project will also curate stories of COVID-19 case management, palliative measures and its impact on the citizens.
“BudgIT and CODE are committed to working with relevant partners to understand the current transparency and accountability frameworks in focus countries, and devise strategies that combine citizen tracking and advocacy for reforms,” they said.
Both organizations will promote collaboration and learning among local partners so they can be more effective and share lessons about accessing data, mobilizing citizens, and engaging governments.
“Our plan is to strengthen existing tools and build new ones where necessary. These tools must match citizens’ needs in the current emergency response and use this platform as a means to drive accountability on the importance of optimising public resources in an emergency situation,” they added.
This project will be supported by the Global Integrity who will design a learning framework that allows for rapid scale while initial funding is provided by Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and Skoll Foundation.
Support Our Journalism
There are millions of ordinary people affected by conflict in Africa whose stories are missing in the mainstream media. HumAngle is determined to tell those challenging and under-reported stories, hoping that the people impacted by these conflicts will find the safety and security they deserve.
To ensure that we continue to provide public service coverage, we have a small favour to ask you. We want you to be part of our journalistic endeavour by contributing a token to us.
Your donation will further promote a robust, free, and independent media.
Donate Here
