Susana's blog

For several weeks, local radio waves transmitted an unusual program in Burundi. This time, by combining radio and cell phones, the marginalized youth from rural Burundi received a chance to express their views on a series of issues that affect their daily lives. A rap song, composed with key findings of the study “Voices of the Youth” and the "Governance Survey," served as background of this pioneer and different approach, transmitted by Radio Publique Africaine.

Cell phones and radio were a way of outreaching places where information hardly makes its way, as well as to engage leaders in rural communities in debates about information obtained through studies that are hardly disseminated among the locals.

During my recent mission to Bujumbura, Burundi, I witnessed the rapid results initiative team in action.  Earlier this March, a group of government officials participated in a training session on the use of the Rapid Results Approach to promote good governance and anti-corruption.  During this training, a group of officials from the Ministry of Education decided that this method could help them to improve efficiency in their sector.

Developing countries increasingly recognize the importance of monitoring governance in order to identify institutional vulnerabilities and take measures to strengthen the effectiveness of their governments. With that in mind, the World Bank Institute recently brought together 30 members of government and civil society from Benin, Burundi, Cameroun, and the DRC to learn from each other and the experiences of various countries with governance and anti-corruption initiatives -from assessment to implementation.

Through prolonged engagement via videoconference before meeting face to face in Kinshasa, DRC, the participants shared experiences about the challenges and opportunities they face for governance reform  and talked about how to harness the power of data to push reforms.

Daniel Kaufmann from WBI discussed the links between governance and growth and lessons learnt from an empirical perspective in Africa: even in a shorter term, African countries can benefit from improvements in governance and the control of corruption in the form of increases in income per capita, he pointed out.