By Emem Idio, Yenagoa

THE Stakeholders Democracy Network, SDN, in partnership with Youth Renaissance & Development Initiative, YORDI, has published a “Village Book”, a brochure that captures the developmental needs of 46 communities across six Local Government Areas in Bayelsa State.

The brochure which was unveiled during a quarterly meeting for the State Monitoring and Advocacy Group, SMAG, and journalists in Yenagoa, is geared towards strengthening citizens participation in environmental policy formulation and accountability in government.

According to the Senior Project Officer of SDN, Flora Asieri, the content of the “Village Book” which captures the priority needs of the selected communities that the government can use as a guide to bring succor and address the main issues facing the people of Bayelsa State, was developed through a voting process involving community chiefs, women and youths from the selected 46 communities.

According to her, the project known as Strengthening Environmental Policy and Accountability in Government, SEPAG, is aimed at setting-up community-based groups from the selected 46 communities that will work closely with CSOs and journalists in amplifying policy-related issues in the state, as well as engage state actors in ensuring that citizens take ownership of government policies and projects.

She further said that the SDN through the project intends to highlight Community developmental needs that are going to ameliorate the plights that indigenes of Bayelsa State are facing, as well as to ensure that Civil Society Organizations are not working in isolation from the communities that are in need of development.

Asieri said: “Like I mentioned during the last meeting we had, I said that we will be coming back to meet quarterly and assess what we are doing so far to see ways to make improvement.

“This is more like an expanded meeting because we have a government representative. So the idea is to see how we can incorporate some the demands of the people and also network with the government to see how we can push the advocacy.

“The difference between our first engagement and now is that we have government presence. We can now strategize further on how best to involve the Government on what we have highlighted as a priority for the state and ways of implementing some of this strategies we have demanded.

“For the particular priorities that have been captured so far by the state monitoring and advocacy group, we have flooding which covers the environment, the issue of the cardiovascular specialist hospital which is an abandoned project; that covers for health, and transportation.

“With these being said, the specifics of the demands include appealing to the government to make the post-2022 flood assessment report available to the public, so the people see the findings and recommendations that they would adopt.

“We will be meeting and updating the public on our progress with the help of the journalists. That is why we have involved the media in this project because they have the capacity to amplify our engagements.”

In his remarks, the Publicity Secretary of the State Monitoring and Advocacy Group, SMAG, Mr. Emmanuel Egede, said: “our role is to identify new and abandoned projects in our communities that needs to be done by government.

“Thereafter, we are expected to engage stakeholders, duty bearers and government officials around us to see how they can be implemented. So we are more like the watchdog of our communities. We have been able to meet with some government ministries and gotten commitments from them.”

Also speaking, a representative of the commissioner for Labour, Employment and Productivity, Vincent Alagba commended the SDN for initiating the project, saying that the project would further draw the people closer to government in the business of developing the infrastructure and manpower needs of the state.

He said: “For this administration, working closely with community leaders is our watchword. And I think this will be an opportunity for us to work more closely together. We are ready to partner with them in achieving their aim. And what is unique about this project is the village book and our government is more than will to adopt it.”

Speaking on behalf Youth Renascence and Development Initiative, YORDI, an NGO working with SDN at the local level, Keme Opia said that participants of the project are drawn from communities across the LGAs that can represent the developmental interest of the people.

He said: “the people have identified the impact of flooding in our communities especially coastal communities. The issues are about government coming up with intervention strategies and specific mechanisms that have been put in place to address the problems of flooding in Bayelsa.

“We have recommended that government should holistically look at addressing the issues of transportation. We also talked about abandoned projects and one of them is the abandoned cardio vascular specialist hospital located somewhere in Okolobiri. That project if revisited and properly implemented will make life easy.

“It will reduce medical bills. Maternal and mortality rate will reduce and creating employment will increase. So more needs to be done by government, in as much as we appreciate the little it has done.”