Social Accountability Monitoring (SAM) is a tool that enhances the achievement of fundamental socio-economic rights and capabilities. It is devoted to creating the right to social accountability and realization of social and economic rights through effective management of public resources by responsible parties who will provide justification and explanations for resource allocation and performance.

In an effort to advocate for the adoption of SAM in government institutions, UNA Tanzania, being a member of Policy Forum, took part in the management meeting with the Local Government Training Institute (LGTI) to collaborate with them in adopting SAM as part of their short-and long-term course programmes. This collaboration will allow many stakeholders including councilors to be trained at the institution, thus filling the knowledge gap that exists about SAM in government institutions.

Through this integration and collaboration, we believe that poverty reduction, greater equity and democratization can be reached by progressively enhancing the capability of government institutions to influence ‘bottom-up’ accountability through more effective monitoring of the social accountability.

Specifically, United Nations Association of Tanzania advocates for facilitating the integration of Sustainable Development Goals in their Regional and District Strategic Plans so that when the country reports on the progress it integrates the data and information from Local Government Authorities. Furthermore, SAM can be used to help government to effectively report on the implementation of the SDGs.