A repository of information on urban governance focusses on developing child-friendly city goes live with dedicated website by IIMA
Ward councillors of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) will now be better equipped with tools and techniques to create a Child-Friendly City. This is part of a unique joint initiative by Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA), and UNICEF formed in the year 2015. The Knowledge Management and Innovation for Change (KMIC), a repository of information on urban governance focusses on developing child-friendly city goes live with a dedicated website by IIMA.
On the role of ward councillors for child wellbeing in a city, Prof Ankur Sarin from IIMA, said, “Our study finds that councillors are often the first point of political contact for the most disadvantaged and are instrumental in realising the aspirations of the inhabitants. However, despite playing a critical role in the last-mile delivery of programmes, councillors have to rely primarily on informal knowledge and networks to fulfil their responsibilities. The KMIC research team engaged in a number of activities aimed at enhancing the capacity of AMC ward councillors to make Ahmedabad city a more child-friendly one.”
KMIC has developed a handbook and training booklet for AMC councillors mapped out location and quality of amenities for each ward in AMC, social protection schemes for children living in urban Ahmedabad and documented expenditure patterns of councillors’ discretionary budgets.
Talking about KMIC endeavours, Rakesh Jani, Social Policy Specialist, UNICEF, said, “The initiative aims at generating knowledge that can act as an input to the policy processes and be instrumental in advancing the rights and wellbeing of children.”
“The Government of Gujarat and its various municipal corporations have taken several steps to provide adequate social infrastructure recognising the needs of children in the urban areas, the success of these policies and efforts would be aided by the improvement in governance and service delivery through more involvement of local actors,” added Jani.
The repository has been prepared with inputs from ward councillors; officials from the city corporations, especially AMC; academicians and representatives from civil society organisations; and volunteers.
KMIC authorities stated that the material has been designed in a way that it is not only instrumentally useful to the councillors but a useful resource for anyone interested in urban local governance.
It will be open for multiple stakeholders including civil society organisations, academicians, and administrative functionaries among others.
More details about some of these initiatives, past publications, policy briefs and lecture videos from previous seminars are available at: https://sites.google.com/iima.ac.in/kmic
KMIC Initiatives:
A Handbook and training booklet for AMC Councillors
It is designed to serve as a handy dossier of information about the functioning of AMC. It aims to give councillors a guided tour through the enormously complex system of civic governance and demystifying opaque processes and systems. The content is organised on several themes such as information regarding the functioning of the corporation (including the structure, acts, and rules governing it), details on how to plan and spend their ‘general and ‘personal’ budgets, roles and responsibilities, and information on various departments and cells of the corporation.
Mapping location and quality of amenities for each ward in AMC
Location of child related amenities with several indicators on quality across all the wards of Ahmedabad have been mapped and made available online. Constructing ward-level profiles entailed geospatial mapping of amenities like schools, anganwadis, hospitals/clinics/Urban Health Centres (UHCs), libraries, gardens, and public toilets, among other amenities. Information on the extent of areas served by the anganwadis and schools and provision of basic infrastructure (electricity, water connections, toilets, and playgrounds) and pupil-teacher ratio has been mapped.
Booklet with information on social protection schemes for children living in urban Ahmedabad
Information on 100+ schemes has been collated and arranged in a user friendly manner. Information regarding the concerned department, eligibility criteria, and details on scheme related benefits has been included. Schemes around education, health, poverty and other social protection areas have been verified from several departments. Information regarding the schemes was gathered through several requests made under RTI Act, and government documents available on websites and offices.
Understanding expenditure patterns of councillors’ discretionary budgets
Building on prior work, the team analysed the utilisation of annual discretionary (or ‘personal’) budgets of councillors based on information collected through requests made under RTI Act and digitised from various wards for the year 2016-17. The discretionary or ‘personal’ budget available to each councillor every year is a potentially customisable budget that can be directed towards child related activities by ward councillors and their electorate. The discretionary budget available to each councillor in AMC for the year 2019-20 was approximately Rs 25 lakh. The objective of the exercise is to encourage greater engagement between councillors and citizens and draw attention and resources towards the ward specific needs of children.
- Advertisement -