| Overview : Given the legacy of decades of military rule in Myanmar, citizens or people have had limited opportunities to exercise their voice or influence change. This has had implications for widening of social inequalities, with implications for availability, access, quality and equity of service delivery.
The Government‘s Framework for Economic and Social Reforms has stated the need for people-centered development through civic participation, clean government and greater autonomy for state/region government in Myanmar. As per the 2008 Constitution, the new sub-national governments have started to open political space but they face significant limitations. There is a greater receptiveness to the importance of civil society. Among development partners, participation through inclusiveness and empowerment of citizens or people at large is recognized as an important principle in decision-making and effective service delivery at the local level.
The Local Governance Mapping initiated by UNDP aims to support this through creating platforms such as community dialogue for people to express their views on the quality of governance and service delivery and stimulating interaction between the people and the government service providers. The Local Governance mapping is a nation-wide research that has been conducted in an initial group of 7 states and regions of Myanmar between August 2013 and June 2014, and is currently being rolled out to the remaining states and regions with the plan to complete all 14 states/regions by February 2014. The initiative first of all aims to respond to scarcity of data, yielding insight in the state of governance in Myanmar at state/region, township level and village tract/ward level, from both the supply and demand side perspective, i.e., from the institutional and citizens’ perspectives.
The objectives of this assignment are to prepare a script, shoot and produce a video film that will introduce the concept of voice and capture how within the process of the Local Governance Mapping citizens/people are using their voice to share their perspectives on quality of governance and basic services, interacting with the government actors at the local level and jointly exploring actions for change. In capturing this, Local Governance Mapping participatory tools enabling people to articulate their views/perceptions through citizen report cards and engaging and interfacing with government and seeking solutions in the Community Dialogue process will be relayed.
In order to capture citizens/people’s voices, the film should demonstrate the Citizen Report Card (CRC) tool helping to encapsulate people’s views, perceptions on participation and access to services (what people feel about issues). It should also aim to capture people’s interaction with government and actions for change through the use of the Community Dialogue (CD) tool reflecting the interaction between community and service providers, appreciation of different points of view, articulation of shared development goals and agreements on ways forward. Finally, it should capture the previous actions decided in the community dialogues in a few states/regions covered in Phase I and II to see actions taken forward through interviews with citizens and service providers. |
