Voice and Accountability: Community Empowerment for Improved Local Service Delivery in Zambia is a four-year, $2.75 million project, targeting approximately 86,000 citizens, for accountable education services in 45 primary and secondary schools in nine districts in the Western and Eastern provinces. Funded by the Japan Social Development Fund and administered by the World Bank, the Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) in Zambia will implement project activities in collaboration with PTF.

The project will empower citizens to use their voices to communicate with local authorities by building community awareness and capacity to apply social accountability tools in education service delivery and increasing community participation in a dialogue with school management and local authorities. This work will also raise awareness among government stakeholders about the benefits from engaging communities in monitoring the quality of education service delivery.

The overall project development objective of strengthening community awareness and participation with school management and local authorities for accountable primary and secondary education services will have three components:

Component 1: Increasing Community Awareness of the Delivery of Education Services

Component 2: Enhancing Community Engagement and Participation in the Delivery of Education Services

Component 3: Project Management and Administration, Monitoring and Evaluation, and Knowledge Dissemination

The three components will be filled through the following activities:

1. Development of training materials and social accountability tools to be shared with project beneficiaries to teach them the principles of social accountability and promote transparency and accountability among duty bearers.

2. Capacity development for community members through the formation of PTAs and ward development committees.

3. Awareness building for school management and local authorities through training activities and meetings.

4. Strengthening the capacity of communities to monitor local education services, including safe school plan implementation, school construction and renovation, school budgets and effective resource use, textbook delivery, and teachers and pupil absenteeism.

5. Effective community engagement with school management and local authorities through consultations with communities, primary and secondary school management, local authorities, and other stakeholders.

6. Exchanges in community knowledge and experience in social accountability with community reporting and awards, peer-to-peer learning, and capacity building of local CSOs.