To strengthen the services of Information and Public Relations Officers in Ebonyi State ,the USAID Nigeria State Accountability, Transparency, and Effectiveness (State2State) Activity has organised a two day “Communication Strategy Implementation Progress Review” meeting where Information and Public Relations Officers (IPROs) were called on to raise the awareness of citizens to participate effectively in the budget process.
Addressing the participants, the USAID Nigeria State2State Communication Specialist, Nneka Acholonu Egbuna called on the Information Officers to be more committed in the budget process and close the gap between the government and citizens by ensuring citizens’ needs are captured in the budget, for more effect service delivery.
She said the essence of the meeting is to evaluate the effectiveness of the communication strategy in enhancing two way communication and public engagement for improved governance, and to discuss the challenges faced by the Information and Public Relations Officers in executing their jobs.
The Communication Specialist added that the meeting will equally assess the performance of Information and Public Relations Officers in implementing the communication strategy in Ebonyi State.
Also speaking, the State Commissioner for Information, represented by the Director of Information in the Ministry, Mr Anya Kama, said the meeting was timely and thanked the facilitator, Nneka Acholonu Egbuna for her resilience and purposeful capacity building in reshaping the activities of the Information and Public Relations Officers in the State, and assured of continued collaboration with State2State.
At the two day review meeting, the Gender and Social Inclusion Specialist with USAID Nigeria State2State, Ejiro Okotie, who spoke extensively on inclusive communication in the budget process, charged the Information and Public Relations Officers to ensure that everybody was carried along as they do their job diligently as a way of telling the public the exact things the government wants to achieve.
Appreciating the State2State for the meeting, participants including the Public Relations Officer Ebonyi State House of Assembly, Mr. Egede Sylvester and Tony Ukwome of Ebonyi Broadcasting Corporation , said the meeting has repositioned the Information and Public Relations Officers on how best to publicize activities of the government and promised to utilize the knowledge gotten in mobilizing citizens to participate in the budget process of the state.
Other lectures delivered include: Development of a Framework to Monitor Progress; Key Performance Indicators and Reporting Mechanisms by the Communication Specialist, and
the Overview of the Community Charter of Demands and Roles of Information and Public Relations Officers, by the Local Government Manager, USAID Nigeria State2State, Victoria Eze.
Meanwhile, bilateral discussions with the Ministries, Parastatals and Agencies on 2025 budget planning has been opened.
This discussion is been collaborated by some individual organizations such as Faith Community Counselling Organisation and is been held at the Budget Hall of the Ministry of Budget and Planning from 26th August and terminates on 20th September 2024 .