Campaign for Good Governance (CGG) has concluded a two days yearly Capacity Building Session on Leadership, Participatory Monitory and Accountability for line Ministries and Local Authorities on Thursday and Friday 26th and 27th February 2020 at Ibo Town in Waterloo Western Rural Area of Sierra Leone.

Programmes Manager, Victor Graff said that the objective of this training is to increase and capacitate Local Authorities on the democratic Governance process and improve Transparency, Accountability.

Graff said at the end of the session they would be expecting Local Authorities to know and understand the concept of Democracy, Accountability and Leadership. Also they are expecting both local and national authority to be able to practice the knowledge acquired in order to demonstrate greater accountability in their community and at national level engagement in dialogue on development policy and practice.

Facilitating a session on democracy, participation, elections and good governance, CGG’s Executive Director, Marcella Samba Sesay stressed that the session is an engagement in which CGG is only facilitating, noting that the reason for this approach is to enable participants to practicalize these concepts in their communities.

For example the Civil Society in Waterloo should be able to mobilize communities so that they would be having meetings with Council. Also Civil Society in Waterloo should be able to mobilize Council to have rotational meetings so that constituents would be able to raise their views, subsequently feel inclusive in the governance process.

She said Good governance involves those in leadership positions engaging in consultations with the people, respecting human rights and laws, and distributing resources irrespective of sex, region, tribe or religion.

Also adding that, the pillars to good governance include accountability, transparency, fairness and the rule of law.  “A leader should have the capacity to set direction, must be action-oriented, trusted, respected and accepted by the people.”

On Friday CGG’s Progammes Manager Sahr Kendema did a recap of day one by examining practical scenarios of four key concepts namely: Transparency and Accountability, Rule of la w; Participation and inclusion; and Resource Mobilization.