Kijana Wajibika – a youth movement for accountable governance
Restless Development Tanzania
“By creating opportunities to develop and participate for the smallest and most marginalized groups, we can bring new voices and perspectives into the development process.” — Restless Development
2020
is when youth population growth in Tanzania is set to plateau
24,000
young people across three Tanzanian regions will be reached
October 2016 End date
September 2017
Issue
Tanzania has been experiencing unprecedented growth of its youth demographic, which today makes up almost two-thirds (63%) of the total population under 25. By 2020, the UN World Population Division projects the youth population growth in Tanzania will plateau indicating we will reach Peak Youth within the next five years. These young people are key beneficiaries and partners in the post-2015 development agenda.
Young people are heavily affected by Tanzania‘s urgent development challenges. They face high levels of unemployment, struggle to access basic services such as health and education, and are excluded from governance processes.
Age hierarchies, gender discrimination, and exclusion of vulnerable populations such as adolescent girls, people with disabilities (PWD) and people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA), all contribute to key rights violations amongst young people. Despite this there are few opportunities for young people to participate in formal political processes or in the design of programmes and policies that aim to address their concerns.
Project
Kijana Wajibika (Youth Be Responsible) is a new youth-led, data-driven accountability programme which aims to place young people at the centre of development and governance processes and provide a platform to empower young Tanzanians to hold their government to account on their commitments such as those made during the elections.
The Kijana Wajibika will create and open spaces for young people, to effectively engage in dynamic community conversations on the quality of service delivery and public resource management, while also working with duty bearers to ensure that they are ready and able to support young people as they speak up for changes in their community .
Through youth-led action research and advocacy, Restless Development will give young people the space to collect data, which focuses on specific policy implementation opportunities, form an evidence base to support advocacy both at local and national level -linking with Open Data commitments made by the government especially under the Open Government Partnership (OGP).
Partner
Since 1993, Restless Development Tanzania is the leading agency for youth-led development working towards a world where young people are at the forefront of change and development, achieving a just and sustainable world for all. Restless Development’s unique youth-led approach has been cited best practice and won awards from the Stars Foundation, World Bank, UNAIDS, and most recently the 2014 Resolve Award for Mabinti Tushike Hatamu.