Quarterly Report: Municipal Governance Program

The program's vision is to tie citizen participation and civic advocacy efforts to achieving short-term tangible improvements in the lives of the target citizenry. During the reporting period of January 1, 2015 to March 31, 2015, the MGP achieved several key accomplishments. In the area of citizen participation, 91% of the 93 partner organizations' projects submitted to the 2015 Municipal Budget process were included in their respective budgets. Municipal Development Councils continued to perform their social control responsibilities by actively participating in the accountability councils for the physical and financial implementation of the Municipal Budgets. The MGP also supported the development of a monitoring and evaluation system by the Youth Roundtable, which will systematically monitor the situation of adolescents and youth in the Southern Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region. Additionally, the Federation of Organizations of Persons with Disabilities held the first course in sign language for deaf people in the municipality of Corn Island. In terms of fiscal transparency, the Republic's General Budget and the 2015 procurement program were integrated into the virtual observatory Our Budget, which is expected to increase participation of the civil society in monitoring public resources. The first draft of the Budget Reform Study was completed, which should generate public opinion on key national issues such as how the resources from tax collection are used. The Citizen Budget, which demonstrates to citizens how resources are allocated to meet the most pressing demands of the population, was elaborated and will be delivered to members of Civil Society Organizations, students, congressmen, and the general public. The Strategic Studies and Public Policies Institute launched the second phase of the campaign "The Budget is Your Money Understanding it is Your Responsibility", which aims to raise awareness in the general public about the importance of knowing where the resources of the general budget are spent. The MGP also continued supporting the organizational capacity development of Civil Society Organizations, particularly the Federation of Organizations of Persons with Disabilities, in the process of forming local boards of directors for each respective organization in the municipalities of Corn Island and Pearl Lagoon. To date, the board of National Association of Nicaragua's Deaf in Corn Island and Los Pipitos in Corn Island and Laguna de Perlas have been formed and are now functioning. In the area of climate change, the MGP sponsored the first of two planned forums this quarter, which examined already existing experiences of climate change adaptation in the region and introduced international adaptation experiences. The forum was attended by 142 people, of which 50% were women. An MGP local partner, blueEnergy, started the design of adaptation demonstration centers, which will include water and sanitation solutions, integrated solid waste management, eco-efficient cook stoves, and demonstration garden plots designed to maximize productivity while minimizing the use of space and water. The MGP also defined its strategy for working with journalists to strengthen their capacities in the journalistic approach to the issue of climate change, with the goal of raising awareness and disseminating not only the threats but the opportunities that climate change may bring. In terms of gender accomplishments, a local partner, FUMSAMI, commemorated International Women's Day through the activity "Diverse and Together for Inclusive Development", which was attended by 50 women and ended with a recreational afternoon open to the public where about 200 people participated, raising awareness to gender equality. CEIMM of the URACCAN university developed two sessions of their short course work on "Collective Feminist Action and New Masculinities", which focused on the collective action of women to critically reflect on the struggle of women in the region from a historical and contextual perspective. URACCAN-CEIMM facilitated the first of two joint sessions with women decision makers in the RACCS region, which were attended by 20 women from different municipalities and ethnic groups in RACCS. The main objective of these sessions was to discuss the regional context and some conceptual and strategic tools that enable female decision-makers to help strengthen the self-development of indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants from a gender perspective. CEIMM-URACCAN, Catholics For a Free Choice, and Software Libre advanced in the design, conceptualization, format, data structure, and key definitions for construction of a virtual monitoring system for gender-based violence for the Violence Observatory.