By Millicent Senava Mannah
The Institute of Governance Reform, in partnership with four local organizations and with support from USAID, has launched the Building Accountability Systems through Empowered Communities (BASE) on October 26, 2023. The auspicious event took place at the New Brookfields Hotel on Jomo Kenyatta Road in Freetown. The Keynote Speaker, Vice President Juldeh Jalloh intimated that the project is essential to ensuring decentralization, good governance and service delivery.
The BASE initiative is a $3.38 million, three-year partnership with five key local organizations, namely Institute of Governance Reform, 50/50 Group, Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law, Independent Radio Network and Budget Advocacy Network through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to build empowered communities for sustainable development in Sierra Leone.
The Keynote Speaker , who was the Vice President, Dr. Juldeh Jalloh, highlighted the importance of a community-involved approach to implementation of initiatives and corresponding impacts nationally, maintaining that such is integral to the achievement of the BASE initiative and the Government’s big five agenda.
He continued that re-centralization tendencies, which is the notion of central Government’s involvement in devolved activities, incapability to generate revenue and accountability factors, are challenges the country have faced in the aftermath of the civil war, stalling plans to focus on decentralization.
The Vice President boosts the confidence of the implementing consortium that its constitution of ministerial representatives, civil society and community stakeholders may bolster confidence and efficiency in all corridors necessary.
Andrew Lavallie, presenting on the baseline report and online tracker, highlights that the BASE project will erase the deficits of service delivery to ensure a theory of change, given the provision of critical services within these Councils, without dependence on central institutions only.
He pointed out the feat in reducing maternal mortality ratio as a success of decentralized services whose model can be replicated in other areas of governance for higher productivity and efficiency.
The United States Ambassador to Sierra Leone, David Hunt, assured their commitments to the project and to the people of Sierra Leone and applauded the organizations for forming such a consortium to promote national development.
According to him, communities will now be holding their local leaders responsible and accountable for the disbursement of funds and undertaking of projects.
Madam Valnora Edwin, explained that Institute of Governance Reform, Centre for Accountability and the Rule of Law, 50-50 group, Independent Radio Network, and Budget Advocacy Network, all possess proven records of expertise in governance, decentralized service delivery, girls, women & youth empowerment, media programming and communication, public finance management, and will be working in partnership with the Local Councils to ensure a smooth implementation of BASE.
The launch was climaxed with a symbolic signing of the BASE Agreement between USAID, represented by the U.S Ambassador to Sierra Leone, Ambassador Hunt & IGR, followed by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with six Local Councils.
