The United States Agency for International Development State2State Accountability, Transparency and Effectiveness Activity has called for increased collaboration among implementation partners in its core sectors.
Arewa PUNCH reports that the core sectors include health, education and water, sanitation, and hygiene.
The Gombe State Team Lead, Muhammad Abubakar, in his welcome remarks during a two-day governance orientation workshop for implementation partners in priority sectors, reiterated the importance of all programmes being implemented by USAID and the need to work together through collaboration, coordination, and cooperation to maximise the impact of all the various intervention.
The workshop participants include USAID Learn to Read Activity, Mercy Corps’ Rural Resilience Activity, and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture as well as representation from the Civil Society Organisations funded by USAID’s Strengthening Civic Advocacy and Local Engagement among others.
Abubakar noted that the objective was to strengthen and leverage existing relationship with state government, and the civil society, as well as align interventions with other USAID programmes in each of the respective six partner states of Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Ebonyi, Gombe, and Sokoto.
He stressed, “The intervention is crucial to ensure alignment of the activities of IPs with the State2State’s purpose and objectives, enhance collaboration, and promote effective service delivery across State2State partner states.
“Failure to conduct governance orientation for IPs may lead to avoidable duplication, miscommunication, misaligned priorities, and inefficiencies, thus threatening the success of the development initiatives of State2State.”
The Team Lead maintained that, “In addition, the orientation will expose the IPs to good governance intricacies and power-play at state and local government levels among the key governance stakeholders.
Meanwhile, the Special Adviser to the Gombe State Governor on Development partner coordination, Ishiyaku, who declared the workshop open called for effective coordination, integration, and alignment of Implementing Partner’s activities, saying that, “IP platforms will continue to be used to achieve effective coordination, integration, and alignment of USAID IP activities in the state.”
USAID’s Public Financial Management Specialist Oluwatosin Oke, while presenting his findings from the Gombe State 2023 midline PFM assessment, understanding public financial management cycle and fiscal planning tools, citizens engagement in governance and improving collaboration and partnership amongst IPs, said, “ the Civil Society Organisations are the door to inclusive citizen engagement/participation for citizens in the community, and it is important they ensure that no one is left behind.”
According to him, Public Financial Management simply refers to how the government manages revenue generation and expenditure, stressing, “how a government organises
revenue generation and spending, as well as debt within a sustainable
threshold to deliver public services that improve the welfare of the people,” he pointed out.
