CHAPTER THREE: DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL GOVERNANCE __________________________________________________________________________  In collaboration with development partners, promote institutional capacity building in communes to ensure better institutional balance between the decentralised administrations and the deconcentrated services (government, mayors and development partners).  Reduce supervisory control over the local assemblies and institute judicial control in order to foster better accountability by elected local councillors (government and Parliament). In the medium and long term:  Introduce significant decentralisation reforms to promote the autonomy of decentralised local authorities (government, Parliament, decentralised authorities and development partners).  Involve traditional authorities in local governance and draw up a legal framework to govern their participation in the activities of the decentralised local authorities. This should cover rights, obligations, conflict mediation, decision-making advisory services, consultancy and others (government, Parliament, and associations of traditional kings and chiefs).  Involve elected local councillors, traditional authorities, associations and other civil society representatives in the preparation of draft reforms to ensure wide consensus about the laws governing these reforms (government, Parliament and all stakeholders).  Facilitate the participation of civil society in decision making by creating an enabling environment (government, Parliament, civil society and development partners). Objective 3: Promote and protect economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights as contained in all the African and international human rights instruments i. Summary of the CSAR 179. With regard to economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights, many provisions, starting with the constitution, recognise and protect the economic, socio-cultural, civil and political rights of citizens. Apart from this basic law, there is the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, the laws governing female genital mutilation and sexual harassment, and provisions on the fundamental right to work. The fundamental freedoms of expression, association, religion and of the press, among others, are respected in Benin. While it is possible to find cases where these constitutional rights have been violated, they are generally minimal. 85