Public Protector Adv. Thuli Madonsela, her Deputy Adv. Kevin Malunga and senior management on Wednesday held a meeting with several potential development partners.
The meeting was a follow up to one held three years ago for purposes of mobilising the development community to support the African Ombudsman Research Centre (AORC).
The AORC, which is currently solely funded by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) through the Public Protector South Africa, helps the African Ombudsman and Mediators Association maintain peace and stability in Africa through, among other programmes, capacity building and research.
The meeting further explored enhancing the work of the Public Protector around strengthening constitutional democracy through the promotion of good governance in the light of funding difficulties that the office has been experiencing over the last few months.
It was attended by the Ambassadors of Norway and Switzerland, and senior officials from United States, Japanese, German and French embassies as well as the Canadian High Commission. Also in attendance were representatives of development agencies such as GIZ (Germany), JICA (Japan) and Flemish (Belgium).
Keen interest was shown by all development partners in attendance. The meeting agreed that any cooperation would be explored within existing government to government agreements. In this regard, the DIRCO and National Treasury would be part of the equation and where money is involved, it would be transferred through the National Treasury.
Key areas of cooperation that emerged as possibilities included being integrated in existing government projects around strengthening good governance.
Other areas of cooperation involved possible training opportunities, including benchmarking visits from the countries concerned in assistance of the AORC and the Public Protector South Africa.
The possibilities of building governance capacity in the organs of state where the Public Protector has found systemic governance failure and strengthening synergies in the oversight mechanisms were also explored.
Going forward, the Public Protector will hold bilateral talks with each of the partners, which bilateral meetings will be broadened to include the National Treasury and the DIRCO.
GIZ and the Commonwealth have previously assisted the Public Protector with the annual Good Governance Conference. The European Union has also assisted the Public Protector, among a few other chapter nine institutions, with funding for the institutions’ outreach programme.
For more information, contact:
Oupa Seglawe
Tel: 012 366 7035
Cell: 072 264 3273
E-mail: oupas@pprotect.org
