Government is currently conducting a Citizen Based Monitoring (CBM) survey in Endicott, south east of Johannesburg, to glean the views of residents about government services in the Lesedi Municipality.
The Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) on Tuesday said it is conducting the survey in partnership with the Gauteng Department of Cooperative Governance (CoGTA).
The three-day survey started on Tuesday and will end on Thursday. CBM is an approach to monitor government performance that focuses on the experience of ordinary citizens in order to strengthen public accountability.
The survey is the second one to be conducted in the local government sphere.
The DPME conducted the first survey in the local government sphere early this year in Colesberg in the Northern Cape Province, with an Integrated Development Plan (IDP) Representative Forum which will lay the ground for community survey and multi-stakeholder feedback meetings.
According to the department, the community of Colesberg made inputs into the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) through a door-to-door survey, which was facilitated by a team of selected community members.
The National Development Plan (NDP) highlights the need to make citizen engagement more meaningful to build an active citizenry and a capable developmental state.
“CBM supports this through the production of and engagement around evidence of government performance.
“Citizen-based monitoring also shifts the emphasis to focus on building local level accountability through the co-production of monitoring information by citizens and frontline officials,” the department said.
To date, DPME has implemented citizen-based monitoring in about 17 health facilities, 17 police stations, 11 SASSA local offices and nine welfare service offices for the Department of Social Development.
The various tools and methods are captured in a CBM toolkit which is available on DPME’s website: www.dpme.gov.za/.../cbmSite/CBM%20Documents/CBM%20Toolkit%20V1.pdf –SAnews.gov.za
