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USAID helps Sabanagrande establish a Municipal Transparency Commission
Honduras Citizens Participate in Government
Photo: USAID/Honduras
The Sabanagrande Transparency Commission, led by Miguel Lagos, hands over the first social audit report to Mayor Guillermo Díaz.
The citizens of Sabanagrande, a small rural community located approximately thirty minutes from the capital city of Honduras, recognize the importance of having a monitoring and oversight role for their municipal government. USAID/Honduras works with several municipalities, including Sabanagrance, to promote social auditing, provide technical assistance to local and independent anti-corruption authorities in their organization, as well as establish guidelines, strategies and action plans.
At an open town meeting, citizens voted to create a social audit and oversight body. Transparency and anti-corruption mechanisms are fundamental to development good governance and poverty alleviation as well as increasing foreign investment, job creation, citizen participation, and democratic stability. In February 2003, the Transparency Commission of Sabanagrande was created and has since embarked on formal citizen oversight and monitoring activities which are being conducted with the full cooperation of municipal authorities.
The citizens of Sabanagrande are demonstrating that they have a right and a responsibility to become involved in municipal government. Active oversight and monitoring of civil society, if conducted in an open and cooperative manner, translates into the better use of public funds, thereby benefiting the community at large and increasing local government credibility. A community without access to information is a community lacking good governance
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