15 November 2013 – To assist the government officials in delivering services to local citizens, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) today concluded a training on accountability of public funds in the Western Equatoria State capital Yambio.

Some 33 officials from all 10 counties attended the two-day workshop, which was the second of its kind to be organized in the state.

“This training is aimed at enhancement of proper accountability with evidence-based reports on performance in service delivery by linkage of input and outcome indicators,” said UNDP Statistics and Development Planning Specialist Moses Komolafe.

“Such a workshop is important to promote efficacy in terms of poverty reduction (and ensuring that) disbursement of public funds is attuned to …. poverty reduction and economic growth,” he added.

Acting Minister of Finance Clement Mbugoniwia said South Sudan had experienced hardship during two decades of civil war and needed such training to lay strong foundations for future generations.

“If you don’t collect good information or data, you may not have a good plan to utilize the resources,” he said. “Use public funds for service delivery and be accountable to the public.”

He urged participants to consider it a privilege that they were setting up systems in government which did not exist before and asked them to train colleagues who had not attended the training.

Noting that two days were not sufficient to exhaustively cover the topic, Mr. Mbugoniwia asked UNDP to organize more capacity building for government officials, describing it as the only way to change work methods.

Participants said that, although they had already been coming up with budgets, the workshop had highlighted important missing areas like data based on community needs as well as projected outcomes to help them follow up on effectiveness of service delivery.