Following the State Kick-off Workshop, and the emergence of Ideato South, Ikeduru and Onuimo as STAR LGAs for the pilot phase of the Transformative Govern

ance Programme in Imo Stare, the Accord team worked with the State Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to agree and implement templates and procedures for deepening stakeholder involvement and ensuring that the overall programme process and its eventual outputs and outcomes is owned by both the communities as well as the State and Local tiers of Government in the State; hence the emergence of Stakeholder Working Groups (SWGs) both at the State and the three STAR LGAs.

The State level SWG was inaugurated on the 7^th of May, 2015, while the LGA composites respectively inaugurated in Ikeduru, Ideato South and Onuimo LGAs, on the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th of June, 2015.

Tangible outputs of the inauguration of SWGs across the State include;

A compendium of issues and concerns as regards the project in the State

i. Ikeduru LGA
• The need to know what specific project areas / interventions the programme would emphasize
• Would there be need for counterpart funding and who would be responsible for producing it?.

ii. Ideato South LGA
• That since proformas for the LGAs budgets are produced by the State Ministry of Planning and Budget, how will the        eventual LGA development plan be mainstreamed into the State Budget?
• That communities in Ideato South LGA have already been over burdened with various assessments that have not lead to  any tangible follow-up projects and programmes; what measures are in place to ensure confidence building and assure the  people that this new initiative will not go the way of others?
• Ideato South already has a compendium of community needs; would it be desirable to simply make this list available to the  programme?
• Are there already existing places where this initiative has been implemented; what are the results?
• What provisions are available for managing the activities of the SWG?

iii. Onuimo LGA
• The level of assistance that would come to communities in the LGA, on account of this programme.
• concerns that this whole exercise would end in the assessment of needs of communities in the LGA
• mode of engagement of communities and the need to involve the 4th tier of Government as is operational in ImoState

In addition to the above resolution reached strongly recommend the need to formally bring this initiative to the attention of the Imo State Executive Council. Talks are already on the way with some critical MDAs involved (including the Office of the Secretary to the State Government, the State Ministry of Planning and Budget, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, the Local Government Service Commission), with a view to having them articulate a joint presentation to the State EXCO., through the Office of the Secretary to the State Government.