Background
Ensuring “a transparent, democratic and accountable environment” is a strategic objective of The Youth Cafés work, which contributes “to reducing fragility, fostering political stability and effective governance, and enabling sustainable and inclusive development and growth”. The AU has developed the African Governance Architecture. The Youth Café has invested significantly in developing skills to be used in governance-enabling activities. Accountability initiatives already exist, from the international level (including the International Aid Transparency Initiative), to the local (with social auditing and budget reviews). However, collaboration among stakeholders can be further enhanced. The under-representation of youth in governance, notably, is a clear challenge which wide-spread information and youth-attractive digital tools can help address. The large proportion of youth in Africa presents an opportunity for further action in transparency and accountability.
Our objectives on Governance: Accountability
“To enable the effective and active engagement of many more young citizens in policy and democratic processes and accountability, through digital means. ”
“Citizen/community driven approaches to transparency, accountability, social auditing and/or budget reviews, especially by youth, are promoted, through a scalable, accessible and user-friendly digital platform.”
“The platform’s tools and data management functions simplify citizens’ oversight activities and enable real-time linkages between public commitments and accountability initiatives.”
“Enhanced linkages between accountability initiatives in Africa and other parts of the world, through an augmented model of city twinning between an Africa and a foreign city. ”
Our activities and aspirations on Governance: Accountability
Developing or adapting a digital platform to enhance youth inclusion in accountability and public policy, linking a foreign and an African city in this endeavor in a form of innovative twinning;
Ensuring dialogue with and buy-in from local authorities, local communities and accountability organizations as well as youth organizations, based on commitments/budgets, gathered evidence and campaigns;
Engaging young people in the fight against corruption and the closing civic space. With the partnership of Ford Foundation, we are building the power of young people to impact government policies, uphold their rights, and fight against corruption and the closing civic space, by strengthening evidence-based advocacy for accountability, critical thinking and media skills, anti-corruption media contest, and collaboration among state and youth organizations;
In these strategic locations and on the basis of the platform, implement with youth an accountability cycle and campaign;
Documenting existing transparency and accountability initiatives;
Mapping some strategic public commitments (e.g. international funding, national and local authority promises, policies, budgets) in the target contexts and in one or more target sector(s);
Enhancing the skills, competencies, knowledge and confidence of young citizens, enabling them to engage on the platform, take part in governance processes and improve their leadership capacity;
Mobilizing young people to track, collect data evidence, and participate in the oversight of public commitments, including through live reviews from citizens on these initiatives and commitments;
A high-impact communication strategy to reach a wide range of youth for the visibility of the project, and a campaign and messaging about the accountability process
Maintaining and updating the digital platform, and ensure regular content generation fostering a community of practice (e.g. the publication of best practices and success stories of accountability/governance processes with youth involvement);
Researching on the best practices of the accountability cycle with digital support and youth engagement, dissemination of results and recommendations and ensuring mutual learning.