As a key focus of the Transparency Maldives SANCUS project is on improving the accountability and oversight of SOEs. To this end we developed a toolkit that citizens and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) can use to collect information on government awarded projects with a special focus on the projects carried out by SOEs. The current toolkit is built on ACC’s Community-Led Social Audit Pilot Program, which was piloted and evaluated in Gn. Fuvahmulah City in 2017. It comprises extensive sets of questionnaires designed for the evaluation of projects within local communities. The data collected through these social audits aims to support citizens and CSOs in raising awareness and advocating for the performance, governance, accountability, and oversight of project-awarded parties, including State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs).
This report comprises the findings and recommendations derived from joint social audits conducted by TM and the ACC between May to August 2023. CSOs and citizens were trained from four atolls in the Maldives, where facilitators introduced social audit as a social accountability tool and used the toolkit to monitor government projects. Throughout, participants were able to experience engaging with stakeholders through interviews and meetings. As such they were equipped with skills that will be useful when conducting social audits or other accountability tools in the future. The findings are presented in the form of case studies for each social audit project which explains the background of selected projects and key issues highlighted.
View/Download the full report here
View the sample questionnaires used for the social audit here:
Sample Questionnaire for Site Observation
Sample Questionnaire for Council
Sample Questionnaire for Ministry
Sample Questionnaire for Public Survey
Sample Questionnaire for Contracted Company