Civic Education – Page 3

Inclusive Civic Engagement Toolkit (Inclusion International, 2015)

July 31, 2018

This toolkit was developed as part of an Inclusion International project, Accessing the Ballot Box, funded by the UN Democracy Fund. The project was designed to address the limited political participation of people with intellectual disabilities in Kenya, Zanzibar and Lebanon.

It sought to identify and challenge the barriers people with intellectual disabilities face in exercising their right to civic engagement and political participation and increase the awareness and knowledge of project stakeholders (people with intellectual disabilities, their families and representative organizations, service providers and governments) on building inclusive democratic processes.

While the project was focused on three countries, the tools and resources have been designed to be applicable in ALL countries. The limited political participation of people with intellectual disabilities is a result of a number of factors – law, policy and practice. Even in countries where no legal prohibition exists, the data suggests that political participation remains low.

Political participation is not simply the act of casting a ballot on election day. Political participation – happens before, during and after elections. To increase political participation and to help shape inclusive civic engagement, our focus, too, must extend beyond the ballot box to look at what inclusive political participation means and how people with intellectual disabilities can access the ballot box.

Click here for full toolkit.

How Can Evidence Bolster Citizen Action? Learning and Adapting for Accountable Public Health in Guatemala ( Accountability Research Center, Accountability Note 2. 2018)

May 31, 2018

Most theories of change in the field of transparency and accountability assume that scientifically rigorous evidence increases the possibility of influencing officials and decision-makers. Generating this evidence has been the work of academic experts. Over the last decade, the Centro de Estudios para la Equidad y la Gobernanza de los Sistemas de Salud (the Center for the Study of Equity and Governance in Health Systems, or CEGSS) has considered the question of how to use evidence to influence authorities and promote participation by users of public services in rural indigenous municipalities of Guatemala.

The author’s initial approach relied on producing rigorous evidence through the surveying of health care facilities using random samples. However, when presented to authorities, this type of evidence did not have any influence on them. In the follow-up phases, the author gradually evolved the approach to employ other methods to collect evidence (such as ethnography and audiovisuals) that are easier to grasp by the non-expert public and the users of public services. The involvement of users of services in evidence collection was accompanied by civic action strategies to engage with authorities in the resolution of problems. Throughout a decade of work, it was learned that methods for gathering evidence that draw in participation from the wider community, that help communities to tell their stories, and that facilitate collective action among service users tend to be the most powerful to influence responsiveness from authorities at local and regional levels of government.

In addition, using participatory approaches to generating and interpreting evidence fosters pedagogical processes of civic action that empower service users by activating their roles as citizens and voters. This process has been used to open space for negotiating the allocation of public resources with authorities at different governance levels.

Click here for full report.

Going vertical: citizen-led reform campaigns in the Philippines (Making All Voices Count research report 2016)

February 23, 2017

The Philippines has a long history of state–society engagement to introduce reforms in government and politics. Forces from civil society and social movements have interfaced with reform-oriented leaders in government on a range of social accountability initiatives – to make governance more responsive, to introduce policy reforms, and to make government more accountable.

Several theoretical propositions on which strategic approaches work best for social accountability initiatives have been put forward – including the idea of vertically integrated civil society monitoring and advocacy. This multi-authored research report uses vertical integration as a framework for examining seven successful civil society social accountability initiatives in the Philippines, looking at what made them successful, and how the gains they realised can be deepened and sustained.

Click here for full details and report.