Commonwealth Local Government Forum

A personal reflection of the CP4D Conference

23 March 2020

 

After two years of working on the Commonwealth Partnership for Democracy (CP4D) project, it was a great opportunity for participants, partners and experts from across the Commonwealth to come together to discuss the different activities and outcomes, and to share ideas on the best way to do things. This opportunity came about at the end of project conference entitled Inclusive Politics in Practice in the Commonwealth organised in London between 4-6 March 2020. Project partner for the initiative in India was CLGF, with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy coordinating the whole programme. 

 

Bhim Raskar, Director of the Research and Support Centre for Development in India and senior Panchayat Leader, Ms Ratnamalatai Vaidhya attended the event and share their personal reflections on the discussions:

 

Background

 

The 2012 Commonwealth Charter commits governments, political parties and civil society organisations in member states to uphold and promote democratic culture to the public. Parliaments and local governments are essential for effective inclusive democratic governance and CP4D contributed to making this a reality. 

 

Improve inclusion by engaging more women, young people, persons with disabilities, religious minorities, and the LGBT+ community in the democratic process on all levels. CP4D implemented a series of regional workshops and activities to increase women's political participation and promote the political rights of minority groups and young people. CP4D also engaged parliamentary actors, local governments and civil society organisations to improve advocacy of political rights for marginalised communities. 

 

Increase accountability through more effective and transparent parliamentary and local practices where public funds and spending are concerned. As part of the 2030 sustainable development agenda, CP4D helped parliaments adopt and implement updated Commonwealth Benchmarks for Democratic Legislatures, in line with Goal 16 of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) that calls for inclusive and accountable governance. They are focusing on work through the Commonwealth Association of Public Accounts Committee (CAPAC), CP4D worked to encourage greater openness and transparency among Commonwealth governments. The CP4D conference has been a key part of such exchanges and the following ideas will definitely strengthen local democracy in Maharashtra, India. 

 

Women Speakers: 

 

• Creating a strong skilled pool of women speakers, who can present their ideological positions and dynamics of the process will be highly effective to improve inclusion in local Governments. Mahila Rajsatta Andolan (MRA) can initiate the process of identifying five women from each district. 

 

• A team of 100 women speakers will be a constructive addition to the core team.

Single Women, Youth and Poor.

 

• Mobilising ‘Single’ Women, Youth & Poor in local self-governance will be a very effective initiative to strengthen mainstreaming & marginalisation in local panchayats. 

Diversity and inclusion in Local Self Governance (LSG).

 

• Only working with women in local governance will not be enough for meaningful inclusive politics. We need to design a pilot project in the state, towards evidence-based diversity and inclusion strategies within LSGs. The British Government is already doing it very successfully. 

 

People With Disability (PWD): 

 

• Working with PWD to mobilise them towards the local power centre is very essential. Their voice in local Governments can access justice to the excluded & the PWD community. African countries are very active on this theme 

 

Parliamentarians: 

 

• Working with parliamentarians is very essential for inclusive and transparent governance in India. We can begin with two or three MPs initially in Maharashtra. 

 

Accountable, Responsive & Transparent (ART): 

 

• Need to mainstream the complete budget and gender budget through the Elected Women Representatives (EWRs) initiative by tracking all sorts of PRI funds, on the basis of ART (Accountable, Responsive & Transparent) principle.

 

Families for Equality:

 

• Designing a Panchayat project for identified families (at least 10 in a village) which really practises optimum equality & has a firm position against all sorts of discrimination at family and village level.

 

Benchmark Indicators

 

• Need to build a framework on core Benchmark indicators for political representatives and political parties based on our constitution of India. Westminster Foundation for Democracy has been doing it for a decade. 

 

Designing tool

 

• Tool Kits to change the mindset of ‘patriarchy’ is a must. MRA has designed creative games on governance like Snakes and-Ladder. Similar tool kits can be designed on the ‘3S’ basis: Stories, Slogans and songs - to propagate equality in the panchayat.

Culture Audit 

 

• Cultural audit of a village will be very effective to design any election campaign at panchayat level. It will guide the election campaigner to design and use the right kind of media and tools for election campaigning. 

 

Localising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 

 

• Sustainable Development Goals are a very important global theme. Basically at field level this campaign is almost zero and very superficial! We need to localise it through a great slogan with actions around ‘Leave No One Behind’. Reaching out to the grassroots will be an objective of this campaign. In-built local mechanisms around localising the SDGs need to be designed. 

 

Evidence Based Panchayat Impact Hub (EBPIH) 

 

• EBPIH will be the need of co-learning between people and panchayats of the next generation. We need to institutionalise EBPIH in every state of the country with the help of CSOs and panchayats.

 

• We need to explore these ideas as a ‘seed’ to enhance the role of voters as citizens and not as consumers.

 

Conclusion: 

 

Over 2018-2020, the commonwealth Partnership for Democracy (CP4D) worked with parliaments and local governments in 18 Commonwealth Member States across Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia to improve the representation of women, young people, persons with disabilities and the LGBT+ community, and how they monitor actions of the executive.

 

These ideas need an expansion and extension based on field relevance and willingness of power holders for policy initiatives. This may strengthen and deepen the people-centered practices of democracy. 

 

These are the personal comments of Ratnamala Vaidhya and Bhim Raskar, to whom we convey our thanks.

 

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