By Taibat Ummi Yakubu

The Katsina State Government has commenced the process of developing a new Open Government Partnership (OGP) Action Plan, with fiscal transparency, peace-building and social cohesion, and climate action and community resilience identified as key areas of focus.

The Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Anas Maliki, disclosed this on Thursday in Katsina while declaring open a two-day technical engagement workshop organised to draft the state’s OGP Action Plan.

Maliki said the administration of Governor Dikko Radda had adopted open governance as an important principle of public administration, stressing that meaningful and sustainable development could not be achieved without active participation and collaboration between government and citizens.

He explained that the fiscal transparency component of the action plan would seek to deepen citizens’ involvement in the entire budget process, beginning with the identification of priority projects and extending to the monitoring of project execution, contracts and public expenditure.

According to him, the state has already taken steps towards institutionalising public participation through regular budget town hall meetings held across communities. The meetings, he said, provide opportunities for traditional leaders, women, youths and other residents to communicate their development needs and priorities directly to government.

On peace-building and social cohesion, the commissioner said the proposed action plan would promote practical, community-driven approaches to resolving disputes, strengthening restorative justice, empowering young people and encouraging solidarity among communities.

“Lasting security cannot be enforced from the outside alone; it must be built from within,” Maliki said, emphasising that sustainable peace would require communities to take ownership of initiatives designed to strengthen security and social cohesion.

He said the third priority, climate action and community resilience, was particularly important because of the growing impact of climate change on farmers, herders and other vulnerable groups across the state.

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Among the interventions being considered, he said, are support for climate-smart agricultural practices, community-led tree planting and reforestation, improved water conservation systems and decentralised environmental protection initiatives.

Maliki urged participants at the workshop to ensure that all commitments eventually included in the action plan were realistic and capable of producing measurable results. He specifically called for the commitments to meet the SMART criteria—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.

The commissioner also assured stakeholders that the exercise would not end with the production of another policy document. He said the government was committed to implementing the agreed commitments and that the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning would provide the institutional support required to finance, monitor and execute them.

Earlier, the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Alhaji Ahmad, said the technical engagement was organised on the understanding that open government must go beyond speeches and declarations to produce practical policies jointly developed by government and the people.

He said the workshop would provide participants with an opportunity to examine the identified priorities and develop concrete commitments capable of improving transparency, accountability and citizens’ participation in governance.

Ahmad urged participants to contribute actively to the deliberations, saying the quality of the final OGP Action Plan would depend largely on the depth of their contributions and the practicality of the commitments developed during the two-day engagement.

He expressed optimism that the workshop would produce a clear and workable framework capable of strengthening the relationship between the government and citizens while advancing transparency, accountability, peace and environmental resilience across Katsina State.