Civil Society Organizations dedicate to master the planning and budgeting cycle to addressing GBV

Pro-femmes Twese/Hamwe in partnership with Care International Rwanda engaged all Civil Society Organizations in a comprehensive training to learn and master the planning and budgeting in addressing Gender Based Violence issues and sustain Every Voice Counts project.

Every Voice Count project aims at promoting a citizen engagement and social accountability model for enhancing women participation and influence in governance processes to address gender based violence at local and National level. CSOs are set to analyze and recommend key issues for consideration in planning and budget especially those in relation to women participation and GBV inclusion in Imihigo.

The training aims to endow with planning and budget preparation calendar as well as planning and budget call circulars. The trainer puts in plain words the three main parts of preparation calendar which are strategic planning, budgeting formulation and/or allocation and budget approval and he stressed that planning is all about information gathering, prioritizing and re-prioritizing. Additionally, in planning and budget call circulars they outline policy and administrative guidelines each agency must follow, provides preliminary three year expenditure ceilings, which is the basis for allocations of the expenditure estimates and request to spending agencies to prepare preliminary estimates of expenditure and non-tax revenue.

Moreover, the training endow with national planning tools and preparation process, budget preparation process and national imihigo preparation and principles. In planning CSOs and the government as whole should identify gaps and weaknesses, identify priorities by consulting guiding frameworks, and estimate costs of implementation, monitor progress, identify off-track areas and make changes where necessary.

The training was so fruitful. As an activist and someone who works in Poor Women’s Development Network, I needed trainings like these ones ? As someone who advocate for women in my everyday life, these training about planning and budget tracking inspired me to keep teaching other women to raise their voice in planning and budgeting process as well as in imihigo planning. I do advocacy in my everyday life and I will keep advocating as the project said Every Voice Counts. Said Cressence, one of the trainees.