USAID Trains Gombe CSOs On Budget Analysis

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through its state Accountability, Transparency and Effectiveness (State2State) project has begun a three-day training for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Gombe State on budget analysis.

The Citizen Engagement and Capacity Building specialist, USAID Nigeria State Accountability, Transparency and Effectiveness State2state in Gombe, Mr Philip Ikita, said the essence of the training was to promote good governance.

Ikita stated that 32 CSOs and eight Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) from the state government would be trained in the three-day exercise.
He said a good knowledge of budget analysis remained a key tool for citizens and CSOs to assess their performance as well as that of government at all levels for the purpose of ensuring development.

According to him, effective budget analysis skills helps citizens and CSOs to ask the right questions to hold government accountable to the people.

“This training will deepen capacity of CSOs in budget analysis, check for progress in the key sectors of basic education, Primary Healthcare and water, sanitation and hygiene”, he said.

Ikita stated that at the end of the training, the capacity of CSOs in budget analysis skills of CSOs would have been built as a way of improving the CSOs capacity towards effective advocacy and quality service delivery to the people.

He assured that the training would help facilitate good understanding of future budget needs while strengthening the budget analysis capacity of women and promoting their civic participation.