Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has published report on Citizens' Voice Study commissioned by the Directorate General M&E of the P&D Department with the technical assistance of the DFID-funded Provincial Reforms Programme. Traditionally there has been state's monopoly over the public sector planning, monitoring and evaluation processes.
However, this trend is breaking now and governments are becoming more open and responsive to the citizens' needs and choices in the ever-changing world. The present and previous year's Annual Development Programmes (ADPs) of the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (2010-11 and 2011-12) were formulated with the inputs of the civil society stakeholders.
With the commissioning of the Citizens' Voice Study, the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has taken a step forward and will include civil society voices (NGOs, academia, media and the private sector) in its monitoring and evaluation practices.
The work on the Citizens' Voice Study was started immediately after the approval of the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework by the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in January 2011. The objective of this study was to assist the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in identifying institutional mechanisms for civil society engagement within the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, including the tools which can be used for such engagement and the manner in which this engagement can be rolled out and strengthened.
The Directorate General M&E has already started working on the implementation of the Citizens' Voice Study recommendations in consultation with the relevant government departments and civil society organisations. To this effect, an Implementation Plan has already been chalked out with the technical assistance of the DFID-funded Provincial Reforms Programme to execute selected recommendations of the study on a pilot-basis during the fiscal year 2011-12.
This includes a proposal to incorporate civil society representatives in the M&E Committees (Advisory, Strategic and Operations) working at the provincial and decentralised levels, for which a process has already been initiated by the Directorate General M&E. A proposal is also under consideration of the provincial government for initiating an Annual Award for civil society organisations for their contributions in the development sector and humanitarian assistance. There is a dire need to close gap between the government and the private enterprise, and the Citizens' Voice Study report precisely addresses this issue and provides very useful recommendations.
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