The third training workshop in "Empowerment" project Regulation and organization of People's accountability to the government is a community need Decreasing number of local councils' members and activating their powers is the solution

Social accountability is a well-known mean to activate the fundamental principles for democratic governance and development approach based on human rights; States are accountable for obligations in front of international community through human rights treaties as well as national legislation. Rights holders also have right to make government accountable to these commitments; they can use a wide range of formal and informal measures to do so. This is the conclusion of third training workshop entitled "Improving the situation economic and social rights" (Empowerment) and is implemented in collaboration between Maat for Peace, Development and Human Rights with the French Cultural Institute for community grassroots leaders and potential candidates for membership of local councils in Ayat province in Giza governorate. Training workshop, "Employment of Rights-based Approach to improve the conditions of drinking water and sanitation," aims to apply human rights standards in exercise of supervisory and planning role for potential members to membership of local councils and community grassroots leaders. In addition, raise awareness of these potential candidates of importance and responsibility of local councils' role in providing basic services and assess their quality. The two-day workshop was held on 23rd – 24th July 2011 addressed topics on human rights, the International Bill of Human Rights, roles and responsibilities of local councils. The training program also addressed the issue of States' obligations towards citizens as well as standards of enjoy the rights such as the availability and provision of services and access to service at a reasonable price as well as quality of services, respect and acceptability with application to water and sanitation. Training also included the issue of community-based accountability; entitled "Citizens Cards" as it is a continuous participatory tool, help in assessing, planning, and monitoring services, as it increases participation, accountability and transparency among beneficiaries of services, providers and decision makers. Discussions in training were about one of important issues that had an argument about it in the last period; is corruption in local councils, as some trainees confirmed that corruption is due to the large number of members of local councils, which is 53,010 members, and therefore it is obvious that you'll find elected members and executives are corrupt. According to accountability and its activation , trainees said that there are a lot of employees at government agencies don’t do their duties, as well as many of citizens themselves are not doing their duties or obligations owed to them in return for this demanding their rights to get services with good quality. The responsibly is not governmental, nor community alone, but there is also an individual responsibility. In end of training, trainees demanded reducing number of local councils' members on all local levels and increasing their powers in the new law for local administration and law should include effective conditions of members' selection .Moreover, they demanded legalization of community-based accountability and including it in the new local administration law.

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