PCF5:Governance and social justice - session reports

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Session details

• Date: ... Wednesday July 16...
• Time: ... 11:00 am and 2:00 pm...
• Room: ... 822 ...

Session papers

Papers presented:

1. Parliamentary Strengthening Programmes: improving access, availability and governance through a self-paced learning probramme - Mr. Mitchell O'Brien (in place of Brooke Prater)

1. The role of open and distance learning in providing support for the decentralization and democrratisation process in Namibia - Ms. Ndeshimona Afunde

1. Trnasforming citizen-leadership engagement, governance institutions and development in communities or quarters: the example of mile 19 in Cameroon - Mr. Daniel Mbwage

1. Using Culture to transform attitudes - Mr. Rafiqul Khokan

Key Issues that arose in the session

• It is important to build on culture. The use of humour within culture is an effective way to tackle sensitive issues and attitudes around good governance;
• governance interventions should dovetail with existing training programmes for the target group of learners;
• to ensure clarity of focus, time must be taken to ensure partners have common objectives
• traditional and modern processes and structures can overlap at the community level;
• use of radio with phone is a possible way to allow communities without internet availability to partcipate in a form of OERs - developing curricula interactively through radio and phone.

Points for future action (Policy, recommendations, commitments etc.)

• find ways to incorporate forms of culture in good governance to build changes on strong platform for sustainability and to encourage busy people to stick with the course;
• find ways that allow learners to be involved in material development through radio and phone where internet access is not a possibility;
• networks are important for initiatives and for organizatios working in this field - establish an open social-network forum as place to share ind diseminate research and materials and discuss challenges.