Executive Director’s Note
The Africa’s Voices approach utilises mass media, usually radio, infused with an SMS short code to create platforms of engagement between decision-makers and citizens. We have used this approach to create two programmatic areas: Governance & Accountability and Citizen Evidence for Social Change.
Under the Governance and Accountability programme, we put citizens’ voices at the center of decision making and enhance social accountability. Through our interactive radio and SMS methodology, we curate inclusive dialogue spaces for decision makers and citizens. Citizens send SMS feedback and questions on the services they receive from their leaders. The SMS received are then analysed to make sense of the conversation at scale. The leaders respond to citizens’ questions and incorporate the insights from the SMS analysis into decision making.
On the other hand, our Citizen Evidence for Social Change programme identifies and challenges norms that underpin harmful practices in the community. Through the Social Behavioural Change Communication (SBCC) strategies that we deploy, citizens engage in conversations that drive the community’s social change. Positive practices are identified and given prominence through our radio programming, while negative ones are diminished.
This report provides highlights and results achieved by Africa’s Voices during the year 2021. Our astounding work in both Kenya and Somalia have been shared in a cogent and reader friendly manner. In a nutshell, we generated engagements that informed decisions in various sectors: Health; governance; humanitarian; youth and education. In total we reached 30,948 participants and received 107,177 SMS that we used for analysis and help our partners make citizen informed decisions.
In addition, the report provides a summary of our financial statements and the 2022 – 2026 Strategic Plan that will be our blueprint to anchor our work on for the next five years.
We are greatly indebted to our partners/donors and staff members for their unwavering support and commitment throughout 2021.
To our esteemed reader, we welcome you to walk with us as we reflect on our successes and achievements of 2021 and chart a course for the coming years.
With best wishes,
Samuel Kimeu,
Executive Director.
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info@africasvoices.org
@africas_voices
