The Citizens Watch is a promise tracker that is designed to enable citizens, civil societies, journalists, scholars and public policy analyst to track and measure the most significant campaign promises of government officials, in a bid to promote accountability and participatory governance.

The Citizens Watch was born out of the conviction that there is no better way to enhance good governance than a fundamental citizen engagement. For government to work for the common good, citizens must be empowered with the information and skills to hold leaders accountable, support pro-people government policies and actively participate in the governance process. 

The purpose of this project is to develop a culture of constructive dialogue between the government and the governed, in a bid to enhance the quality of basic public services delivery in education, health, agriculture, infrastructures etc. 

HOW IT WORKS

The Citizens Watch makes use of an offline and mobile technology tracking tools, to track the most significant campaign promises of public office holders and ultimately rate each promise using the following metrics:

Not Started: Every government promises begins at this stage.

Ongoing: This metric indicates that the promise is in the works.

Fifty/Fifty: This indicates that a promise is done halfway- the promise have been partly completed, less than the official’s original promise.

Against a Brick Wall: Promise earn this rating when its fulfillment is being challenged or jeopardized by a legislative act, injunction or a natural disaster.

Promise Broken: This metric is used for a promise that is not kept. 

Promise Kept: This indicates that a promise has been completely fulfilled.

It is worthy of note that to setup a promise tracker, such as #GSMWatch, our team will peruse policy document, media engagements, campaign websites, transcripts of speeches, debates, and statements made during rallies searching for trackable promises. It is to these promises that we shall hold public office holders accountable, nothing more.

We’ll publish updates on progress, or lack thereof, on each significant promises been tracked. We will rate outcomes, not intentions or proposed solutions. 

The Citizens Watch is an initiative of Reformers Of Africa