Promoting community-led governance solutions

About the project

Sarvodaya are increasing opportunities for people to engage in local governance in Sri Lanka.

With the support of a Commonwealth Foundation grant, Sarvodaya will work with 20 existing civil society organisations across the country, helping them to improve their understanding of local governance, advocacy and monitoring methods. Community monitoring teams will be formed to monitor local government for improved transparency and accountability.

The project will increase opportunities for dialogue between community members and elected representatives of local government authorities through citizen juries. Networking and sharing good practice will be encouraged, and in-kind grants will be given to fund small-scale community projects improving local governance. The project hopes to build on internationally accepted values of participation, inclusiveness, transparency and accountability which it hopes will result in community-led solutions to promote good governance. This project builds on previous work carried out by Sarvodaya to train community monitoring teams.

Sarvodaya has created a membership fund of R10m together with a national volunteer base of approximately 10,000 members contributing to the strength of the project. It has a strong track record of delivering this type of work and has used the learning from other initiatives to develop this project.