Donor Agency: Open Society Foundation
Start Date: July 1, 2013
Duration: 12 Months
Target Area: Peshawar, Swabi and Mardan

The project focuses on the following three outcomes:

• Demonstrating Social Accountability in action through research studies
• Improved capacity of civil society organizations to effectively monitor utilization of public funds
• Instigation of an advocacy and awareness campaign on social accountability

The project undertakes various activities that aim at strengthening citizens’ voice and improving transparency and social accountability in service delivery in the education and health sector in Peshawar, Mardan and Swabi. An extensive study of the budget of the targeted area for three fiscal years will be undertaken as comparative analysis of health and education sector. Additionally, a Citizen Report Card Survey will also be conducted to demonstrate effectiveness of social accountability to civil society groups. Six social accountability forums highlighting issues pertaining to social accountability will be held that would engage 90 participants from the civil society, media and government departments. Based on the research, training workshops will be held in Swabi and Mardan that will train 40 members of civil society organization and journalists in order to facilitate them in better monitoring of utilization of public funds. This would lead to an advanced training in social accountability tools in a five-day training workshop in Islamabad. Three seminars will also be conducted in Peshawar, Swabi and Mardan to build awareness of issues pertaining to social accountability.

Achievements:

1. Citizen Report Card carried out surveying the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region.
2. A strong network of the civil society and media has been built which is not only showing great interest in exacting accountability for a more transparent system but is also strengthening the cause by taking the message forward.
3. Meeting held with provincial education minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to share the findings of education sector. The minister appreciated the findings of research and made commitments to increase the education budget and make it more sensitive.
4. As a result of the project, there has been substantial increase (about 5%) in the operation and maintenance budgets of the schools.
5. As a result of project, the KP elementary and secondary education has made 28,000 schools data public. This is a great step forward for improving openness in the education sector.