Fortalecimiento de la vigilancia de las veedurías ciudadanas sobre el Programa de Alimentación Escolar : Caso Cartagena de Indias

Abstract

The School Feeding Program is one of the utmost national government important educational strategies taking into account its objectives: to make easier the access and continuity for children and adolescents getting into the official educational system and thus making sure their rights to education and feeding. To fulfill this, the State grants important money resource. However, in the last years this program has been questioned because the contractors, citizen trustee, and government agencies failure. From this viewpoint, the present project was oriented to find out the real situation the program is currently experiencing in Cartagena de Indias. According to the control government agencies report and the judicial bodies, it has serious problems to achieve its objectives due to the ineffective and inefficient contractual management, as well as the incompetent controls applied by the government agencies in charge and, also, the little active citizen participation to oversight the social control corresponding to them. To carry this on, surveys and interviews were done to the local citizen trustees. The outcome showed that the Cartagena de Indias citizens oversight on this program is very weak, standing out, among others, the lack of knowledge related to the matters being monitored and, even, the rampant procedure ignorance that does not allow to apply the law effectively when doing their job. In consequence, a training proposal is presented for the Cartagena de Indias trustee citizens to improve their surveillance skill results on the public management, in particular, the money allocated for the School Feeding Program and its execution outcomes.