Steps on how to Hold Your Government Accountable

The FTM Theory of Change holds that if citizens have access to public spending data and are educated about why, when, and how they can hold their governments to account, they will begin to do so, and government responsiveness, transparency, and service delivery will improve. These communities will see greater levels of political participation and monitoring of fiscal governance and receive greater benefits from capital projects implemented by the government.

Without budget data and knowledge of the government’s budget-expenditure system, citizens cannot act. This is where the ‘Follow The Money’ Movement comes in by providing such data to citizens via every possible channel: FTM radio shows, social media, WhatsApp, SMS, and visits to communities. This was the reason FTM activated its subnational and international chapters as vehicles for social accountability, as well as launched the www.ifollowthemoney.org platform. This is also the rationale behind FTM’s capacity building for community governance structures and the thinking behind its public spending, town hall meetings, FTM campus tours, community outreaches, and several other mechanisms that help mobilize and empower citizens to provide effective public oversight.

This is also the wisdom behind FTM’s advocacy on open budgets (using the hashtag #OpenBudgets) and engagement with governments to access budget and procurement data, as well as capacity building for government personnel on the need for budget/procurement openness and citizen participation/engagement in their spending.

Conclusion

In this module, we have examined the problems FTM is addressing—corruption, contracted transparency, weak social accountability, and poor service delivery—and the effects of these problems on the education and health sectors, as well as poverty and standard of living. In addition, we have looked at the FTM theory of change in order to understand FTM’s hypothesis, thinking, and action.

Introduction

After Module 1, you may be asking yourself, “Okay, this sounds interesting. But how do I follow the money?” Don’t worry, we have got your back! In this module, we will take you through the FTM systematic steps and explain in practical terms how you can launch an FTM campaign in your country or community.

How to Follow The Money / FTM Systematic Steps

FTM follows 8 structured steps. They are: (1) Find the money to follow in a community or locality; (2) Visit the community and inform community leaders about a budgeted public project that affects them (community outreach); (3) Organize a visit to bring community leaders in contact with the government ministry, department, or agency (MDA) implementing the contract; (4) Organize a meeting with the contractor implementing the project; (5) Write a ‘Freedom of Information Request’ to the implementing government MDA requesting project specifics; (6) Organize a town hall meeting in the community to discuss the project being implemented; (7) Monitor the project being implemented alongside members of the community; and (8) Regularly engage with the government MDA implementing the project or contract.

The steps are split into 2 main stages: steps 1 - 5 and steps 6 - 8. While all 8 steps can be performed successively during project implementation if community leaders and the responsible government MDA are responsive and engaged, this is not always possible. In many situations, it is best to separate FTM campaigns and ensure that steps 1-5 are fully completed before organizing a community town hall meeting (step 6).

To start a ‘Follow The Money’ campaign, the most critical thing you require is information about the money to follow either in your community or at another community of interest to you. You have to know the project, its budgeted amount, and the community where it would be implemented. Even if you do not know the amount involved (in the case of tender data), you need data about the specific project and the location of implementation. Once you have found the money (for a project, the location, and/or the amount), you may proceed to follow through with the details on ‘how to follow the money’ in step 1, after which you may kickstart an FTM campaign. In doing the latter, you have to develop a #hashtag to use in the campaign. This is simply done by merging the name of the community with appropriate keywords such as 'water','revamp','renovate','rehabilitate', ‘educate’, ‘equip’, ‘erect’, ‘build’, 'construct', et cetera, depending on whether it is a renovation or construction project or a project involving the purchase of equipment for a school or primary healthcare center.

Introduction

In this last module, we will discuss how you can join the FTM movement and how you can start an FTM chapter or club.

How to Join the Follow The Money Movement

The iFollowTheMoney platform is an online community for thousands of passionate young people across Africa who hold their government to accountable standards to ensure that dividends of democracy are gained and public funds work for the good of the people. The platform, as of mid-2021, hosts over 8,000 students, journalists, community champions, activists, development workers, data enthusiasts, government personnel, and many others.

We are excited to have you join the FTM movement as we build an active forum of volunteers who desire to make fiscal governance work across Africa. Joining us is simple! You can join the movement by downloading our open-source platform, the iFollowTheMoney application. This application is available on the Google Play Store and the Apple Store. After downloading the application, sign up and create an account. You can also directly register on the website via the connected development website.

There is so much to get from the platform, including access to information on government spending, budget, and procurement data. In addition, you will also have the opportunity to collaborate with other active citizens to hold your government to account.

Furthermore, you may be interested in joining state chapters. We have chapters in every state in Nigeria that meet often to discuss social accountability, monitor government spending, and collaborate to ensure effective service delivery on capital projects. You may also decide to join any of our country chapters. We have country chapters in The Gambia, Kenya, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Ethiopia, Cape Verde, South Sudan, and Cameroun.