Posted by Diana Bulanda - 10 November 2008 at 00:00 hours
Budget Tracking-The key to Accountability
I recently read the Zambian papers, indicating that the Global Fund would like to have back the funds given to Zimbabwe to implement some HIV/AIDS programmes. This money is worth billions and people must be wondering how it has been misused. This is what most of our African communities are being faced with today. We the citizenary and especially young people are being denied the opportunity to know what belongs to us in terms of funding for programmes. If we engage in budget tracking, we will be able to know our entitilements, as to specific allocations for specific sectors. It is high time that our governments and other relevant stakeholders learnt how to be accountable to their partners. It all trickles down to both the bottom-up and top-down approaches. Let us as young people encourage our Governemnts to put in place deliberate policies that will make it possible for us to have the information on how allocations are done for HIV/AIDS Programming as well as other programmes affecting young people. Once that is done, then we can be able to hold someone accountable. In the same vein we will make it easier for ourselves to lobby for more funds and advocate for accountability. "Be the change you want to see in the world"