Devolution
Devolution of power and resources is a pivotal means of promoting and advancing democracy, participation and accountability. Based on the objectives of Devolution as captured in Article 174 of the constitution, the promises of Devolution can be conceptualized as bringing with it opportunities towards equality, participation, accountability and effective service delivery. Devolution is also enhancing good governance by incorporating vertical separation of powers accountability and increasing the ambit of checks and balances.
Vibrant Civil Society Organisation and Citizens, is the pillar of effective and efficient democratic Governance and flourishing local development. CSOs include community groups, non-governmental organisations, youth associations, advocacy groups, think tanks, labour unions, charitable organizations, faith-based organizations, professional associations and foundations Civil society also includes formal and informal civic networks, such as social movements. These civic and social structures shape public policy, provide important information to citizens and governments, hold governments accountable, defend basic rights, deliver social services, foster civic engagement and empower citizens to solve social challenges.
The involvement of civil society organisations is an important strategy for ensuring services are designed in a targeted and transparent manner. In Kenya, however, a shortage of functional coordination structures hampers such participation at the national level, while at the local level, weak capacities for financial management, reporting and advocacy exclude smaller organisations in particular from planning processes and funding opportunities. This jeopardises the sustainability of many organisations’ works.
MIALANO LAW FIRM ORGANIZATION’s Intervention Solutions
MLFZ brings vast experience in strengthening civil society and promoting civic engagement in Kenya and subsidiaries in South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, DRCongo, Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda. Our work cultivates strong relationships with local partners to design and implement approaches. We have established a track record of empowering local actors to strengthen the frameworks, laws policies and institutions that form the basis of effective governance systems.
MIALANO LAW FIRM ORGANIZATION Strengthening Civil Society Organizations and Citizens to participate at both national and county levels for the benefit of the local communities. We work with Civil Society organisations and citizens to resolve the challenges of perennial challenges of poor planning and lack of community engagement. Additionally, issues of mismatched priorities and white elephant projects are rampant. We encourage the collaborative approach between government and civil society organisations in resolving the issues facing the communities. This is done through robust discussion, during budgeting, planning, policy discussion and other matters that concern citizens.
Our Approach
We believe that well-organised, informed and motivated CSOs and citizens, can result in targeted development at national and county levels and, when cascaded can be beneficial to the citizens within the communities. We do this by increasing citizen knowledge and engagement in governance processes, establishing and consolidating networks and coalitions for joint impact, Enhancing, county and national government accountability to citizens and entrenching governance value in the development agenda.
We use two prong approaches in strengthening the civil society organization and citizens, we provide Consultancy and Training. The two services are provided at a cost to the client
| # | MLFZ Training Programmes |
| 1 | Organization development system and strengthening (ODSS) |
| 2 | Organization Capacity Assessments (OCA) |
| 3 | Monitoring and evaluation |
| 4 | Reporting, and development of success stories and Human-Interest stories |
| 5 | Resource mobilization and proposal writing |
| 6 | Social accountability |
| 7 | Grants management |
| 8 | Civic engagement and access to information |
| 9 | Outcome harvesting training |
| 10 | Effective Citizen Engagement in planning and Budget process |
| 11 | Training of Board of Management on leadership and Governance |
| 12 | Coaching and Mentorship |
| 13 | Emotional Intelligence |
| 14 | Social accountability |
| 15 | Communication skills and Public speaking |
| 16 | Change Management |
| 17 | Climate Change |
| # | MLFZ Counsultancy Services |
| 1 | Third-Party Monitoring |
| 2 | Program Evaluation, Baseline, Midterm and End term evaluation |
| 3 | Outcome Harvesting |
| 4 | Development of MERLA Framework |
| 5 | Mentorship of CSOs in Program implementation |
| 6 | Development of Institutional Policies, such as HR policies, Communication policies, social media policies, strategic plans, Finance policies, volunteer policies, gender violence policies, Child protection policies, Procurement Policies |
| 7 | Development of organisation reporting framework |
| 8 | Mapping of stakeholders |
| 9 | Development of an operational framework |
| 10 | Development of IEC materials |
