Voice and Accountability: Community Empowerment for Improved Local Service Delivery in Zambia is a four-year, $2.75 million project, targeting approximately 86,000 citizens, for accountable education services in 45 primary and secondary schools in nine districts in the Western and Eastern provinces. Funded by the Japan Social Development Fund and administered by the World Bank, the Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) in Zambia will implement project activities in collaboration with PTF.

The latest Semi-Annual Progress Report can be found here.

There are three components:

Component 1: Increase the community’s awareness of their rights and entitlements

Component 2: Enhance community engagement and participation in the delivery of education services

Component 3: Build capacity (of CSPR) in project management, administration, M&E, and knowledge dissemination

1. Establish a Social Accountability Committee (SAC) at each school.
2. Develop training materials to inform community members of their rights and entitlements in the Education sector.
3. Develop social accountability tools to monitor changes in the delivery of education services in the community. In particular noting changes in the following: construction quality, absenteeism rates for teachers and pupils; quantity of textbooks in classrooms; community input into allocation of budget grants; and safe school plan implementation levels.
4. Administer semi-annual scorecards at each school to determine changes in service delivery. In particular seek information from minority groups, community members and leaders using several tools.
5. Organize meetings in the communities to consolidate findings; and bring these issues to the district education officers to discuss solutions in a public forum. Agree on action plans to resolve issues.
6. Since the schools are remote, set up a free data collection system that can be used on a phone app. Train SAC members to collect data using, KoboCollect.
7. Establish a dashboard to track project progress and the resolution of complaints.
8. Involve school management and local authorities in all training activities and meetings. The objective is to use constructive dialogue to reach solutions.
9. Enable exchanges, peer-to-peer learning experiences, to sustain the project.
10. Create materials in local languages such as a Community Training Manual to sustain ideas and methods after the project ends.