DRC- Demand-side Governance and Strengthening of the Civil Society The Democratic Republic of Congo is transitioning out of conflict, and engaging on the path to development after decades of violence. Since the 2006 election, the country has undertaken major reforms and initiated several development initiatives, such as the "5 chantiers" aiming at distributing peace dividends to the populations through infrastructure and public services rehabilitations. In spite of these efforts, tensions are still arising in the eastern part of the country. States Institutions remain weak; corruption rampant and the lack of transparency and of good governance in the management of public affairs have been major impediments to growth and stability.  In this context of fragility and conflict, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have been playing an important role in delivering services to the population at the provincial levels, especially in the eastern part of the country where the role of central states has been very limited. In this phase of transition, where the central government is modifying its role towards provincial entities, and is reforming its PFM structures, CSOs have a potential important role to play in improving government transparency and accountability in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The government is currently making major changes in this system.  As a part of the HIPC triggers, the Ministry of Finance and Budgets are engaged in a Public Financial Management (PFM) reform process, which includes a modernization of the expenditure chain and the introduction of a mid-term expenditure framework within the budget process. Moreover, as about 50 percent of the DRC national budget comes from aid implementation, an Aid Management Platform (AMP) is being implemented within the Ministry of Plan, aiming at supporting the Government to better coordinate international assistance. Better use of donors based funding data has led to a consolidated budget exercise for 2010, including donors' assistance in the national budget for the first time. Yet despite these efforts, there are still few internal check and balances in the system, which leads to continued corruption and poor development outcomes, and call for an enhanced role of CSOs in this process. In spite of having taken an active role in delivering services to the population, they overall still lack the capacity to monitor and evaluate the delivery of services by public institutions, and public financial management system (PFM), including donors' based data. This proposal aim at improving the delivery of services by public institutions, and, in a second phase, the public financial management systems by reinforcing government accountability mechanisms. In doing. The proposal will reach that objective by reinforcing the citizenry in general and CSOs' in particular in a phased approach: in the short term by developing their capacity to monitor and track the effectiveness of the delivery of services by public institutions against plans. In the longer term, as the PFM reforms will have led to a greater disclosure of government budget data, CSOs' will be supported to monitor and report back on budget expenditures, from donors and from the government; both at the central and provincial level. Grant: $499,000 Grant Approval:  May 4, 2010 Grant Effectiveness:  Aug, 23, 2010 Original Closing Date:  Aug, 23, 2013 This proposal aims at improving the delivery of public services in the DRC by strengthening Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) as a constructive partner in the dialogue for governance reform. Specifically, the proposal will support CSOs to (i) help conduct ICT facilitated feedback surveys to monitor, track and evaluate the effectiveness of public service delivery and (ii) to establish participatory budgeting mechanisms to engage citizens in the elaboration of local budgets. This aims at creating greater citizen awareness of budget limitations, of cost-effective use of public funds, and of tracking expenditures. This regards donor and government projects both at the central and provincial levels