The National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO) is launching Non-State Actors Apex Alliance (NSAA) provincial committees set to capacitate Civic Society Organisation (CSOs) on pro-poor policy lobbying and advocacy for community development from the grassroots.
The alliance has eight CSOs some of which include the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) Women Coalition Zimbabwe (WICOZ) and others.
The programme will be running for two and a half years dating back from January this year, supported by a US$900 000 European Union (EU) grant facility.
Speaking on the sidelines of a two day training workshop conducted in Gweru on Tuesday, NANGO acting Executive Director Mr Leonard Mandishora said NSAA provincial structures are a replica of the national structure already established with the aim of decentralizing the capacitation process down to the grass roots.
“The purpose of the workshops is to establish provincial and district NSAA committees, which will replicate the work that we are doing at the national level.
“We have organised capacity enhancement programmes, aimed at equipping the NSAA committees at provincial level with requisite skills to enable them to effectively carry out their work at the regional level,” he said.
Mashora said the programme is coordinated by NANGO focusing on five key areas which include policy advocacy aimed at empowering NSAA members with basic skills to influence national, local and district development processes.
These, as Mashora says include policies, regulations, court decisions and other decrees that government may make so that they become pro-poor and support the development needs of local communities.
He said other topics focused on are results based management, monitoring and evaluation, corporate governance and understanding government as a key partner.
Midlands is the first province to have a regional NSAA committee and Shurugwi will also be the first to have a district structure.
Other targeted provinces and districts in the initial outreach are Bulawayo and Manicaland, Gwanda and Chipinge respectively.
The programme aims at having provincial structures and at least one district committee in each of the country’s provinces.
