Citizens making things happen

Sauti za Wananchi · 2014-09-02T14:24:13+00:00

Sevenout of ten citizens (70%) report that they think that have no say in whatGovernment does. At the same time seven out of ten citizens (71%) think votingis the only way they have influence over Government. At core these reflect thesame sentiment – aside from the choices they make during elections - citizensdo not feel that they influence government decision-making or activity. Citizensappear to place little trust in formal institutions or local government officialsin addressing their issues: nine out of ten report that they have notinteracted with their MP in the last year and half (47%) report not to haveinteracted with their street or village chairman to raise issues. In generalformal political institutions seem to play minimal roles in people's lives.Only one out of seven citizens (16%) are members of any political party. Thesefindings were released by Twaweza in a research brief titled Citizens makingthings happen: are citizens active and can they hold government to account? Thebrief is based on data from Twaweza's Sauti za Wananchi, Africa's first nationally representativemobile phone survey that interviews households across Mainland Tanzania. Despitethe apparently low levels of interaction with formal channels, 6 out of 10 citizens(58%) report that they observed joint or collective complaints to officials intheir community in the last 12 months (some of these may be reports of the samecomplaint). These complaints are normally organized to seek improvement in apublic facility at the local level. The most common issues are teacherabsenteeism and access to clean and safe water. Whenit comes to raising issues within the community, Sauti za Wananchi found that people are fairly vocal about problemsthey face. Eight out of ten citizens (84%) raise their issues in groups whichthey belong to, three out of ten have called in to a radio station (32%) orcomplained to a friend (31%). However, citizens are much less likely to walkout of a discussion (only 9% reported to have done so in the past year), attenda demonstration or protest (8%), refuse to pay tax (6%) or use force to achievea political cause (1%). Communitygroups generally play a significant role in people's lives with seven out often Tanzanians belonging to one. Religious groups are most popular: one out ofthree citizens (36%) belong to one and three out of ten (30%) participate in atleast half of the meetings. The second most common type are savings and loansgroups, of which two out of ten citizens (22%) are members, most of whom (20%of citizens in total) attend at least half of the groups' meetings. Communitysolidarity appears to be high: almost all citizens (98%) believe that if anunforeseen incident, such as house fire, occurred, their community would gettogether to help. In contrast, when asked whether they trust people generally,nine out of ten people (87%) felt that you had to be very careful with others. Sevenout of ten citizens (68%) also directly contribute to constructing ormaintaining public facilities. Of these most (88%) contribute money while therest (12%) contribute time. This is in stark contrast to apparently low levelsof tax collection but shows that citizens are in one way or anothercontributing to the running of government. However these collections are not wellregulated. In addition, insufficient transparency and checks and balances mean contributionsmay not be collected fairly or used productively. In fact, four out of ten ofthose (39%) who contributed to local facilities say they were forced to do so, erodingpublic trust. Citizensalso strongly feel that they can rely on themselves to get things done. Sevenout of ten citizens (70%) respond positively to statements about their ownability to overcome challenges, find solutions to their problems and accomplishtheir own goals. RakeshRajani, Head of Twaweza, commented on the findings. "Tanzanians are active members of community groups and undertakecollective action to complain to officials in their community. They also feelthat they are able to tackle obstacles and make things happen in their ownlives but express feelings of powerlessness when it comes to their influenceover government. Thus far citizens have shied away from the more emphatic andvocal forms of citizen agency such as tax refusal, protests or walk outs.However significant service delivery challenges remain in all major sectors. Ifthe Government does not become more responsive to this softer engagement, wemay see citizens become more aggressive in the future." To read policy brief and press release : www.twaweza.org

Thread starter Sauti za Wananchi
Start date Sep 2, 2014

Sauti za Wananchi

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Citizens making things happen

Sauti za Wananchi

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