African Monitor Launches the Citizens’ Report in Ghana

African Monitor (AM) launched the citizen-driven data initiative – the Citizen’s Report! (CR!) yesterday, 1 November 2017 in Accra, Ghana, with support from Open Society Southern Africa and West Africa. This launch took place at the African Youth SDGs Summit (AYSDGS) hosted by AM’s partner the Youth Advocacy Ghana (YAG).

This initiative is planned to be implemented in ten Africa countries – Botswana, Malawi, Zambia, Senegal, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Nigeria. The aim with this is to empower the citizens to hold their governments accountable for development delivery; and to strengthen the accountability relationship between governments and citizens.

Through this work, African citizens will be able to monitor the implementation of sustainable development in Africa using citizen-driven data.

“Holding governments accountable is a powerful tool to ensure that transformation actually happens,” said AM’s Director Namhla Mniki-Mangaliso.

Mniki-Mangaliso also emphasized on the importance of bringing ownership back to the hands of ordinary people.

With this launch being on the Africa Youth Day, Mniki-Mangaliso also encouraged the youth to be activists and change agents in the African continent.

“Africa is on the verge of a big explosion. The people in this room are those going to liberate Africa. I don’t believe salvation is coming. I think we are the salvation,” she said.

Development in Africa cannot be realised unless ordinary people are effectively engaged in driving development and holding their governments accountable for development commitments and results.  African Monitor aims to contribute to the effective implementation of a people-centred sustainable development agenda in Africa by leveraging the SDGs and Agenda 2063 as instruments for effective delivery in Africa; placing citizens at the centre of the development agenda.

With a heavy emphasis on Agenda 2030, and the notion that we need to be hyper focused on addressing issues to achieve the goals we want to see in place by 2030, as a global community, she further urged the young people to take charge of their lives.

“You must define yourself beyond what the system does, especially if it does not empower you. Our job in this generation is to disrupt the system,” she said.

The next launch of the Citizens’ Report! will be in Johannesburg, South Africa in December 2017. Follow the hashtag #CitizensReport on Social Media in the coming weeks and look out for the launch date in South Africa.