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What’s democracy without citizen participation?

This article presented by Grocott's Mail discusses the ongoing challenges in achieving meaningful citizen participation and accountability within South Africa's local municipalities, focusing on the case study of Makhanda. It highlights initiatives like the Action for Accountability project and the role of organizations like the Public Service Accountability Monitor in promoting civic engagement and addressing governance issues. It has been three decades since the dawn of democracy in South Africa, yet gaps between communities and government remain a talking point. The apartheid administration brought the blatant exclusive participation in governance, forcefully silencing a large portion of the population. However, the [...]

2024-04-19T17:17:14+00:0019th April 2024|

Preventing Violence through Mediation as Liberia Transitions, Part 2

By: Beth Goldberg (Summer Resident Fellow at Accountability Lab Liberia) and John Kamma (Founder of Citizens Bureau for Development and Productivity, and Accountapreneur). This blog post is the second in a series about the Community Justice Team in Logan Town, Liberia. Mr. Kamma and his team of mediators face three primary challenges in delivering justice in Liberia: Transportation & Communication – the communities served by the Citizens Bureau are widely dispersed and the mediators have no vehicles. For example, one office of the Bureau serves Logan Town’s 17 distinct communities of over 70,000 residents. This is a tall order, but [...]

2016-07-14T00:00:00+00:0014th July 2016|

Preventing Violence through Mediation as Liberia Transitions, Part 1

By: Beth Goldberg (Summer Resident Fellow at Accountability Lab Liberia) and John Kamma (Founder of Citizens Bureau for Development and Productivity, and Accountapreneur) The five mediators sat along the wall of the bright blue room, sweat beading in the stagnant Liberian heat as the office manager, Rockson, recalled a recent case: A 16 year-old girl was accused of witchcraft by her community for exhibiting “unusual behavior”, not unheard of in Liberia where belief in the supernatural is widespread. The girl was subsequently ostracized by her community, prohibited from attending school and church. The situation escalated when her parents were given [...]

2016-07-13T00:00:00+00:0013th July 2016|

Mediating mob violence and misunderstanding in Liberia

By: John Kamma, director of the Citizens Bureau in Logan Town, Liberia and an “accountapreneur” with the Accountability Lab. This blog post was originally published by HiiL Innovating Justice. At the time of writing, there are more questions than answers regarding the recent death of Victoria Zayzay in a jail cell at the Zone 6 police substation. She had been detained on October 20, 2015 after another woman claimed she had caused L$3,000 (US$40) property damage to her business. A preliminary police report by Liberia National Police said the cause of death was attempted suicide. The father of the late Zayzay has [...]

2020-03-03T16:04:05+00:0023rd December 2015|
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