Counterpart’s USAID-funded Resilient Governance in Niger activity, also called Jagoranci, organized a peer-to-peer learning event that brought together 15 representatives from communes in Zinder, Tillabéri, and Maradi to identify challenges and find solutions to community concerns and needs.

Working group discusses the successes and challenges of CdCs.

The Chadakori commune, located in the Maradi region, hosted the event in November 2022, and featured more than 42 members from local Cadre de Concertation Communals (CdCs), or Communal Consultation Framework, which included both women and youth. The CdCs are a mechanism that provides a space for the communes to consult with local actors regarding development priorities and to coordinate local development interventions. They are led by the commune and composed of different civil society organizations or local leaders ad hoc. Representatives from PACT2, a project funded by the Swiss government, also attended.

The learning event gave the CdCs an opportunity to resolve community problems. One major challenge faced by the Chadakori commune was the need to improve relationships between refugees coming from Nigeria and the host community, and address conflicts regarding access to land. With the technical and financial support of Jagoranci, the Chadakori CdC organized a multi-stakeholder dialogue between refugees and host communities, which resulted in the establishment of a land issues management community comprised of representatives from refugee communities, host communities, local authorities, and traditional leadership.

Other challenges included the need to improve the management of health and water services delivery, with a focus on transparency of service cost and renewing the bureau of oversight committees through municipal decree.

The knowledge market fair was one of the flagship sessions of the meeting, where each CdC shared its successes and challenges with the others. This exercise strengthened the capacities and motivation of the CdCs to play a greater role in supporting municipal officials to address community priorities. The participants emphasized the importance of strengthening communication among communes, via WhatsApp groups.

A member of the Chadakori CdC presents their activities.

The Chadakori commune shared its success in supporting municipal officials with the other CdC representatives.

Results from the two-day peer-to-peer meeting between communes are below. The meeting resulted in:

• The development of an action plan that addresses key challenges and proposed solutions/action responsible to achieve results.
• The creation of four monitoring groups, one for each region and one at the national level, in charge of monitoring the implementation of the action plan.

Jagoranci will continue to support the participating communes in fulfilling their roles and responsibilities by addressing the identified challenges.

To learn more about our Resilient Governance in Niger activity, read the story of Rabi Abdou, a Nigerien woman with a disability who found her voice in local government.