Project name: “Citizen monitoring the National Assembly of Senegal”
Project website: www.pencumrewmi.com
Duration: from 2017 to 2022
Goals:
• Improve access to parliamentary information;
• Strengthen transparency and accountability;
• Improve the dialogue between members of the parliament and Citizens.
Beneficiaries: Citizens, MPs, Politicians, Press, Academics.
In addition to field actions, the program uses digital platforms to monitor National Assembly activities, engages Senegalese citizens with legislative politics and grants them opportunities to communicate, to evaluate and to hold elected representatives.
Main activities :
• Monitoring: National Assembly, MPs activities and budgetary transparency;
• Publication: Publication of parliamentary information on a web and mobile platform;
• Mediation: Facilitation of the dialogue and collaboration MPs-citizens;
• Advocacy: Promoting transparency and a culture of accountability MPs;
• Empowerment: Development and strengthening of citizen initiatives.
Outcomes
• A responsive web application (www.pencumrewmi.sn) has been developed;
• Press conference on the right to access parliamentary information;
• Eighteen (18) radio programs on parliamentary transparency and accountability.
Significant achievements
• The citizens are more aware of the dysfunctions of the Senegalese democracy because of the national assembly lack of transparency.
Challenges
The major challenge is that the National Assembly of Senegal has not necessarily been used to showing, explaining and detailing its action to the citizens. There is lack of habit, so, it will be very difficult to change this situation.
Another challenge is the lack of support from other civil societies organizations and the press.