Our Partners
Focus on three key relationships
The Accompanying Partnership for Community Empowerment
- Citizens, their Organizations and the State:
Access to information and transparency of the political and development process are key drivers of accountability in a functioning democracy. Policy and issue based civil society organizations that are well informed about the content of public policy and the process of government decision-making are well placed to advocate for the advancement of the legitimate interests of specific groups by contributing to public dialogue and debate. Civil society organizations can build systematic links between representatives and their service providers through public outreach activities including public hearings and citizen-friendly information channels of communication.
Furthermore, civil society can provide the necessary policy analysis and perspectives that facilitate leaders to refine their policy positions, and continue to align their interests with those of the governing structure. The institutionalization of the opportunities and mechanisms for civil society engagement in the governance architecture in Sri Lanka is therefore a key to promoting a sustainable and peaceful means through which citizens voices and interests may be heard and addressed.
- The Administrations and Executive:
As representative institutions of government, administrations have central roles in ensuring the participatory, transparent and accountable workings of government. The relationship between the admin and the executive is therefore critical in ensuring that national policies and directives remain aligned to the agreed development priorities, within framing laws and in the interests of the citizens they represent. The processes and mechanisms of dialogue within the legislature, and between the legislature and the executive are thus important in ensuring continued alignment, and support a forum for building consensus where there are divergent interests and views.
Sri Lanka, have the potential to be an effective means through which Gender and development maygood governance be promoted. This includes effective oversight of the equitable distribution of resources and ensuring the inclusion of the interests of disenfranchised constituencies. More specifically, commissions and committees focused on public expenditure accountability; social sector allocations and justice are useful forums for driving forward specific pro-poor policy agendas.
A key constraint is that pre & post 2020Precedent andGeneral elections, the National and provincial political and religious and media agendas are dominated by the hatred and divided. As such, the oversight functions of the legislatures are likely to be informed by party loyalties, with minority party representatives having scant influence. For this reason, the project also supports civil society (including media) engagement with the reconciliation process to mitigate the power dynamics within the parliament – with civil society playing a key role in holding parliament itself to account –in aligning public policies with evidence based needs. In addition, the nascent engagement with the administration, may also serve to increase the accountability process between the national and regional district mechanisms.
- The Media ,community and the State:
The media serves as the fourth branch of government, by disseminating information and thereby serving as a catalyst for dialogue between the State and citizens. A media sector that is well informed about not only the processes through which decisions are made, but also the policy that the project seeks to advance can provide a platform as well as driver for change through a focus on civic and investigative journalism on issues such as the role of the parliament in executive oversight, civil society advocacy agendas and constituency representation.
More specifically, in the pre-election phase media ensures that citizens make informed choices about the political representation of their interests within those spaces where public policy will be made. After elections, access to decisions of government allows the general public and their organizations to maintain dialogue with their elected representatives and hold them to account for the delivery of their policy platforms for which they have been elected.
The overall report from the media consortium that monitored media coverage during the 2022 Aragalaya concluded that informative, investigative and neutral journalism is limited in Sri Lanka. Noting that that rather than investigative journalism and field reporting, interviews, studio discussions and broad news coverage, viewers are provided a studio-delivered digest of “protocol” news – mainly government bulletins of the official state activities and speeches of the day.Nonetheless, as with the elections within the space available there is scope to increase the policy content of the press to move away from partisan rhetoric. The aim is to continue in the provision of journalistic investigative skills and technical competency around the budgetary process so that the media is increasingly the catalyst for debate – rather than being the object and sole driver of debate.
