By Venance George, The Citizen Correspondent  
Morogoro. The Tanzanian government has committed itself, as part of its fight against poverty, to undertake a major reform in the public sector.A major component of this is to fast track the reform of in the local government system which is increasingly recognised as a critical factor in achieving development.

One of the tools that used to measure and assess governance performance is the use of local governance barometer (LGB).This is a methodology that is designed to gauge citizen perception of government effectiveness over time.  Applied at the local level, it involves extensive discussions with government and citizenry around what constitutes good governance and an actual ranking of those elements to develop a governance “score.”

 Explaining on the LGB implementation process, the coordinator of Union for Non-Governmental Organisation in Morogoro Region (UNGO) projects, Venance Mlally, said the barometer is a set of organised indicators arranged to measure five governance criteria which are effectiveness and efficiency- which measure the extent to which public planned activities are realised and expected results are obtained in an efficient way.

Other criteria “include the rule of law, which guarantees the respect of law and opportunity for all to access justice, transparency and accountability that authorities’ ability and willing to be transparent and report the extent to which its actions, policy, decisions and their impacts are realised.

Participation as a way by which citizens are involved in development activities and equity which ensures that all people have the same rights and those rights are respected

Mlally said: “The barometer further identifies strengths and weaknesses and develop action plan. It also monitors and evaluates the effectiveness and impact of governance projects.”

Local government barometer uses a participatory approach in its implementation processes whereby all key stakeholders of a particular district are involved from the very start to the end.

The Union of Non Governmental Organisations (UNGO) has received financial and technical support from Pact Tanzania (through its STAR programme-strengthening transparency, accountability and responsibility) to implement the barometer in Morogoro Region.

UNGO implemented legal government barometer in Kilombero, Ulanga, Morogoro district councils and Morogoro Municipality and focused on primary education sector and land use management sector in Kilosa District.
 A total number of 114 village representatives and primary schools were visited by the barometer teams for data collection.

The coordinator of the UNGO’s project said that it was quite early to measure the impact of LGB implementation in relation to good governance performances; however, there some key achievements of the programme in the region, these include barometer’s identified key accountability gaps in good governance in the five councils which are land conflicts caused by  denial of opportunity to access land for many marginalised groups, failure of the local government authorities  to complete surveys on  village boundaries, lack of district strategic land use management plan and absence of district land tribunal.

Mlally highlighted other gaps in good governance as lack or absence of land tribunals at ward level, lack of participatory planning processes at village and ward levels, lack of technical know-how of local government authorities  on resolving land conflicts, inadequate and inefficient legal framework and actions taken against corruptive behaviors, absence of village land use management committees (LMCs) and village assemblies.

Others include, unclear vision and plan at the ward and school levels, poor planning at the school and ward levels, none availability of school implementation reports and disproportionate gender representation in the school committees.

He adds that poor enforcement of laws and by-laws including misuse of funds, poor allocation and transfer of teachers, Poor education services to vulnerable children and those with special needs and low level of public awareness on the education policy and laws.

 Absence of strong NGOs taking up the watch dog role, absence of a monitoring and evaluation team and irregular inspection, contrary to regulations are also gaps in the whole set up.

LGB has raised and increased community awareness on the status of governance and performance within their respective councils and thus have the opportunity to demand explanations and justifications from their local leaders.
 As LGB involved many stakeholders throughout its processes up to the feedback,  that has increased their understanding on the importance of measuring the performance of their leaders in the delivery of services.

 LGB has helped the local government authorities to understand the weak areas of their performance so as to rectify the situation-ie. It helped them to have researched information for their planning processes. Each council has its own action plan t o work on.

 A number of civil society organisations have their capacity in advocacy engagement increased. Other countries where the barometer has been implemented successfully are Madagascar, Ghana, Cameroon, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

The involvement of key stakeholders from the very start has played a very significant role in ensuring smooth implementation of the barometer.

In most cases, local government authorities’ planning process is still a ‘top-down’ rather that ‘bottom-up’ approaches as it should be. Therefore more sensitisation is needed to improve the situation.

About challenges and way forward, Mlally said the biggest challenge for barometer success lies on the availability of resources to ensure that the agreed action plans are put into action; reluctance of local government authorities to implement the agreed actions while participation of top district officials in some district councils was poor.
 UNGO is developing and advocacy and sustainability strategies to address the above issues.

“It is calling its partners to support the strategy; it also calls for other civil society organisations to work on the emerged issues such as those of land management,” he said.

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