Civil Society : Mutual Accountability Project (CS:MAP)

The Civil Society: Mutual Accountability Project (CS: MAP) is a five-year project (April 2016-April 2021) supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by FHI 360/CDC-Nepal. CS: MAP’s goal is to foster a more legitimate, accountable, and resilient Nepali civil society that is capable of advancing the public interest.

Project Implementation areas: Nuwakot-2 Rural Municipalities(Meghang & Likhu) & Rasuwa-2 Rural Municipalities (Kalika & Uttargaya)

Goal of the program: The goal of this project is to recreate the vibrancy of civil society in the district by ensuring civic participation in policy/legal reforms, promote civic engagement with government entities and strengthen their capacity to carry out public policy advocacy and oversight for effective public service delivery and public resource use.

Objective of Program

Objective 1.     Strengthened CSO initiatives to coordinate with the GoN and to implement constructive advocacy strategies.

Objective 2.     Improved coalition-building between local and national CSOs, and between CSOs and the media that leads to joint actions undertaken on selected policy priorities across sectors.

Objective 3.     Improved  CSO and media capacity to conduct participatory and evidence-based research on issues, policy, and enforcement to benefit marginalized groups.

Objective 4.     Improved capacities of local CSOs, media, and community-based organizations to monitor and report on cross-sectoral public service delivery, based on common standards applicable to each sector.

Objective 5.     Improved bottom-up coordination between community, district, and national formal and informal CSOs engaged in public service oversight.

Objective 6.     Improved citizen awareness and use of available GoN social accountability mechanisms.

Objective 7.     Improved citizen engagements in media and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools to strengthen public participation and oversight.

Objective 8.     Improved institutional governance of selected CSOs and media organizations.

Objective 9.     Improved capacity of select CSOs and media organizations to mobilize social and f  financial resources for sustainability.

Objective 10.   Improved capacity of CSOs and media organizations to advance local solutions on priority development issues across sectors and to promote peer-learning opportunities.

Beneficiaries

The primary beneficiaries of the Project will be people from the disadvantaged group, like marginalized women, old citizen, single women, including earthquake affected people of both districts. This group will be benefited directly from Project inputs, such as information about services and processes, training, connections and linkages and resultant supply of services.

Secondary beneficiaries are municipalities/gaunpalika/-local unit office, schools, health post, DCC, political parties, and other state agencies, and district-level civil society organisations, who will have both direct (to a limited extent) and indirect benefits from the Project. They will particularly benefit from informed and skilled people capable of engaging with the state to promote governance and accountability.