It is Everyone’s Duty to Observe Local Governments in Turkey

We interviewed Hale Akay from Yereliz (an association that works on monitoring local administrations and strengthening civil society dialogue) about their latest report called “Participation and Inclusion Report of Istanbul Municipalities with Guiding Indicators.”

Hale Akay: “The general picture regarding inclusion is very saddening.”

We are really surprised at the results we gathered totally from very fundamental indicators and open sources. If we don’t count some leading municipalities, the general picture regarding inclusion is very saddening. As you can see from the results, some certain groups are not visible at all. Issues concerning women and children are way behind the era.

Did you share this report with municipalities or do you think about sharing it?

Yes, we definitely will share the report with municipalities; we are planning that.

You communicated with almost every municipality in İstanbul and gather too much data. Is there anything else that you could not add to the report? Will you conduct different studies with that data?

We founded the association a year ago and from the very first moment, we aim to create a measurement system to support the notion of “human rights city” and help to build the required institutional capacity.

This report is a little step towards that objective. Then, we plan to focus on the budgets and services of municipalities and want to get together with other CSOs to discuss our first results. Our aim is to observe the standardized indicators and share with them with the public.