The Civic Engagement for Accountability and Democracy in Zimbabwe (CEADZ) is a four-year program, currently in its last year of implementation. The program seeks to increase the influence of Zimbabwean citizens, acting collectively through formal and informal groups, for more democratic and accountable governance. To fulfil its objectives, CEADZ has been providing technical support to civic actors in Zimbabwe, mainly civil society organizations (CSOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs), to promote sustained civic-solution holder engagement for improved transparency, answerability, and accountability with notable success. The program’s interventions are linked to the basic understanding that Social Accountability Monitoring (SAM) has the potential of increasing and sustaining citizens participation in governance processes to improve transparency and accountability at multiple levels. Social Accountability constitutes the range of measures and mechanisms—beyond the ballot box—that involve citizens in holding the state to account, i.e. justify and explain its actions, or lack thereof.
The CEADZ approach to SAM is underpinned by a rights-based approach to public resource management- a method developed, tested and pioneered by the Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) at Rhodes University in Grahamstown South Africa. In achieving this, the PSAM model uses five key processes that are central to public resource management.
This factsheet summarizes CEADZ results and lessons achieved during the three years of program implementation. The document presents major behavioral, attitudinal, and perceptual changes among boundary partners (stakeholders).
