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For over nine years, Connected Development [CODE], through its FollowThe Money Iniave has tracked and monitored public spending in rural communities across Nigeria and other African countries. As of December 2020, CODE had reached over 3,300,000 people across 231 communities, in 37 Nigerian  States and the FCT Abuja. By fostering social accountability, the organization has advocated for open government, improved service delivery in the execution of development projects, exposed and mitigated corruption, and tackled extreme poverty in rural communities. 

In November 2020, CODE secured a grant from The MacArthur Foundation, for the project:, “Deepening  Cizens’ Interest in Government Spendings and Addressing Accompanying Corrupt Practices  (DeSPAAC) in Kaduna State.” 

The three-year project involves mobilizing community governance structures across the aforementioned communities through the CommunityMonitoring Teams (CMTs) vehicle and empowering them to provide effective public oversight on government spending in their communities, for effective service delivery on constituency projects in the educaon, health, and WASH sectors.  

Year one of the project focused on tracking 23 constituencies (zonal intervention) projects from the list of 2020 and 2021 ZIPs in 30 communities across the three (3) senatorial zones of Kaduna State worth  N1.167 billion. In all, 12 projects were tracked from the 2020 ZIP Budget document and 11 projects were  tracked from the 2020 ZIPBudget document.

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The last quarter of the year 2021 was indeed a rollercoaster. With project managers putting in extra hours to ensure that project deliverables were met in accordance with both internal and external protocol. 

An outstanding loss for the team was the demise of our friend and colleague Alfred Anichi Oji, who until his death was CODE’s Digital Media Officer. Alfred was respected and admired for his enduring commitment and outstanding contributions to the development space and to CODE.

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The third quarter of 2021 was in furtherance of CODEs strategic plan. On the journey towards taking hold of governance processes and seeking more accountable systems, we made advancement in education, health, energy, governance sectors through various projects championed by vibrant youths who believe in an inclusive Nigeria for all by creating feedback loops between the people and the government and strengthening systems and communities along the way.

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In the first half, We recorded significant results from hosting an audacious COVID Transparency and Accountability Conference to kicking off the tracking of N1.1Bn Kaduna Constituency Projects, to advocating better living standards for residents in Oil-producing states, and working with State Governments to demand an end to GBV. We began this second half of the year on the bedrock of enhancing citizens’ engagement, building partnerships and collaborating with institutions who share in our vision to accelerate timely intervention for marginalised groups.

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We kick started the year ready to evolve and expand our work across more African countries, reaching more marginalized communities with the message of Follow The Money. To officially launch the programs and campaigns for the year, we engaged our HQ staff as it is the norm in a 3 days strategic and planning meeting in order to reinforce the organisational goals, build synergy across departments and map out deliverables and engagement strategies for our cohort of volunteers and champions.

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We have now published the status of COVID Fund tracking in Malawi, Kenya and Cameroon

The COVID19 pandemic was expected to have a devastating effect on Africa’s weak health infrastructure, but it rather left a more devastating trail economically – spiking the already high unemployment rate and plunging the country into another recession.

With high influx of donations by international agencies, individuals and private organisations to combat the deadly virus, the challenge with most African countries is the lack of transparent and accountable systems that can respond to emergency situations.

Our experience has shown rounds of crisis profiteering, creating quick rich schemes for “tenderpreneurs” in a restrictive environment that lacks accountability and civic engagement. We have also seen restriction of civic spaces under the guise of lockdowns as well as brutality by state officials, this was why the COVID-19 Transparency and Accountability Project (CTAP) was launched to promote accountability and transparency through the tracking of COVID-19 intervention funds across 7 African countries. 

The project is implemented by CODE’s Follow The Money and BudgIT. Both organizations have been leveraging their Tracka and Follow The Money platforms, as well as international chapters in other six focus African countries to activate a Pan-African tracking system for all COVID-19 funds received and donated to these countries.

CTAP’s shared long term vision is that every community in the continent has skilled, sensitised and largely self-organising citizens engaged in budget-tracking while presenting feedback and results to the government and development partners in a constructive manner. All efforts are aimed towards building that informed and engaged citizenry – a movement of factivists –  in the medium to long term period. 

In the past year since the project was launched, Follow The Money has tracked COVID funds in Kenya, Cameroon and Malawi. Click to read the full reports from these countries.

Focusing on the E-WASH program broader objectives of “strengthening policy, institutional, and regulatory frameworks for improved WASH services; and building a national and state WASH advocacy, coordination, and communications for reform,” The Effective Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Services (E-WASH ) program is a one year (1) program funded by the United States Agency for International Development with the goal of Improving Nigeria-Urban WASH Service Delivery.

The USAID E-WASH program sought to “support civic advocacy and WASH stakeholder engagement, coordinate with government and other WASH service providers (including private sector) to improve urban WASH service delivery.” Similarly, the project mobilised all relevant stakeholders at the state level on E-WASH service delivery and created platforms for engagement between the government and civil society. As such, focusing on Niger, Delta, and Taraba States, CODE leveraged on its citizen mobilization and multidimensional engagement expertise, resources, and strategies; presence and network in the aforementioned states. It also leveraged WASH accountability capacity; as well as its social accountability innovation, Follow The Money, to broaden collaborations between relevant government agencies, State Water Boards (SWB), lawmakers, community-based associations/organizations (CBA/O), Water Consumer Associations, Media and the general public to expand and improve urban water service delivery.

This report provides key activities undertaken as well as the outputs and foreseeable outcomes from them. In the months, CODE visited three (3) states- Niger, Taraba, and Delta States.

Download the Close Out Report and view successes recorded during the project implementation phase.

The ‘Strengthening State Capacities and Women’s Participation in Covid19 Response and Broader Peacebuilding Initiatives’ a campaign funded by UN Women in collaboration with
the British High Commission, had the goal of enhancing Women’s leadership and participation in decision making in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project sought to advance women’s meaningful participation in the COVID-19 response and beyond in Kaduna state.

Through implementing coherent, comprehensible and multi-dimensional civic engagement, Connected Development [CODE] leveraged on its citizen mobilization and multidimensional engagement expertise, resources and strategies; presence and network in Kaduna states to broaden collaborations between relevant government agencies, enhance the capacities of 45 women, girls and men in the development of a checklist and tracker that served as a tool for monitoring and tracking government’s response and recovery decisions from a gender perspective. 18 out of these groups we trained using the checklist and monitored the Kaduna State Government’s COVID-19 response, actions and policies, across 5 local government areas in Kaduna state.

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The fight against corruption and illicit financial flow plays an indispensable role in ensuring state security, wealth redistribution, economic prosperity, realization of socio-economic rights and sustainable development. Corruption endangers unimpeded functioning of the public sector, weakens public trust and as such citizens must take this fight as an obligation for a better Nigeria. The Malabu Scandal is adjudged to be one of Africa’s most controversial and corrupt oil deals. It has been 23 years (1998) since the illegal award of the OPL 245 and 9 years (2011) since the deal was consummated for about $1.1b.

Connected Development [CODE] in partnership with OXFAM Novib, galvanized Nigerian citizens against corruption by amplifying the putrid details, investigative reports and developments of the Malabu “OPL 245” Scandal – effectively calling on the federal government and key anti-corruption agencies to properly investigate and accelerate their prosecution of the actors indicted in the scandal which robbed Nigerians of $1.1 billion – through a series of strategic advocacy campaigns and activities designed to achieve the project goals notwithstanding the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Click to read the project report