CCJP hailed for promoting urban governance at Lilongwe City Council
Lilongwe City Council (LCC) has hailed the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace of the Archdiocese of Lilongwe (CCJP) for facilitating the building of effective communication and coordination between the council and its residents.
LCC Development Strategy Manager, Gift Kasamira, disclosed that the enhanced effective communication and coordination has helped create a platform where the council and residents can now engage and discuss development and implementation of various development projects.
Kasamira was speaking in Lilongwe after a media tour the Lilongwe City Council (LCC) conducted in partnership with CCJP Lilongwe and Oxfam Malawi.
On the tour, the journalists were taken to Lilongwe Waste Transfer Station and Biwi Health Centre to appreciate the changes the city council has made in response to the cries of the residents for improved service delivery.
“We have seen a lot of improvement in the city since the Urban Governance Project was rolled out. So, many development projects have taken place whereby the council and the residents are closely working together both at initiation and implementation level, and, this has built public trust in their council,” he said.
Kasamira said the council looks forward to a continued work relationship between the council and CCJP Lilongwe and Oxfam Malawi for a sustained socioeconomic development of the city and the residents.
CCJP Governance Project coordinator, Mwai Sandram, said enhancement of relationship between residents and councils is critical in improving the quality of living conditions among residents, especially the marginalised and disadvantaged communities.
“As we have always stressed, one key aspect of urban governance is engaging and involving the greater urban governance community in planning and development. Furthermore, ensuring sustainability requires engaging citizens and holding local officials accountable. This means that citizens have procedural rights, such as access to information, the ability to meaningfully participate in decision making processes, and the ability to demand enforcement of those rights,” he explained.
“And with the intervention of this project, we have seen residents and city fathers freely engaging and exchanging ideas on how they can improve delivery of social services in the council. This is a very commendable step towards improving the quality of living for the residents,” added Sandram.
CCJP Lilongwe is implementing this project in partnership with Oxfam with financial support from Tilitonse Foundation to create a platform for dialogue between stakeholders in the City of Lilongwe after realising that they are poorly coordinated, which is compromising service delivery in the city.
The project facilitates the engagement of officials at the council and stakeholders in urban governance to promote and enhance collaborative approaches that strengthen mechanisms of policy and institutional coordination for people-centred development planning.
Through the project, the Commission organizes town-hall meetings where LCC senior staff members, including the Mayor, the Chief Executive Officer and directors of the departments face residents in interface discusseions where the latter highlight and seek solutions to their challenges.
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