It’s been an incredible, exciting, and eventful year for us at Connected Development marked by tremendous growth and impactful achievements. However, we didn’t achieve this alone. It was a collaborative endeavor, made possible by the support and dedication of our donors, partners, stakeholders, and the outstanding CODE team.
Our work in 2023 addressed a number of pressing issues, ranging from the decline in girl-child education to gender-based violence, climate challenges, transparency issues in government and so on. Despite facing significant challenges across these fronts, we emerged victorious, as we always do. Through our work, we were able to reach more people and make a tangible difference in their lives.
2020 Annual Report: Empowering Communities in a Pandemic
In 2020, with the global pandemic binding the world together, we saw our work come together in new ways, creating the springboard we need to unleash unprecedented impact in the years ahead. We witnessed a great level of interdependence—that our collective success does not only depend on how we care for ourselves but also how we are looking out for other people around us.
In light of what we do at CODE, constantly advocating for public funds to be used for public good, especially in the areas of education and more importantly healthcare, we most certainly believe that the state of a nation’s healthcare is tantamount to its wellbeing. Our call for accountability and transparency in public services was to prepare our society, our country and the world to tackle challenges that a pandemic of this kind presents.
Although the impact of our work was tested in many ways than one, we achieved measurable impacts through #FollowCOVIDMoney campaign and numerous projects, tracking the sum of 507, 967,121.5 USD worth of government budgets. We mobilised young people in 7 African countries to use digital tools for social accountability and to track COVID Funds, reached 257 Communities and impacted 4,879,000 Lives.
Today, as the globe continues to deal with COVID-19 and navigate its health, economic and social implications, we at CODE have continued to make proactive decisions to provide communities with access to information and also ensure the personal health and safety of our team and our members across Africa.
The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on girls’ education have posed some concerns-from the potential of an early marriage, to early pregnancy, susceptibility to gender-based violence and sexual harassment- there are numerous and diverse impacts of the pandemic directly or indirectly affecting the girl-child’s education and their overall well being.
CODE, with the support of Malala Fund, has now carried out a research on the implication of these effects on girls in Nigeria’s North-East, specifically Adamawa State, and what must be done to remedy the situation.
2016 Annual Report: Big Stories from Rural Communities
In Nigerian rural communities, overtime, billions of dollars have been appropriated for the provision of health facilities , teaching aid, water and clean energy inputs, and have remained only spent “on paper”. 80% of such funds do not reach these communities. Many times they are not aware, and at times, they do not have the will/capacity to challenge and ask questions. It’s Game Over! There is a new movement that has been empowered and organised to reverse this trend. This is a compilation of what these “citizen monitors” were able to achieve in 2016.
2019 Annual Report: Rebuilding Trust in Institutions
In 2019, what we learnt engaging with government Ministries, Departments and Agencies a year before informed our objective for 2019, which was to begin a campaign that was intended to increase trust among citizens and government. CODE’s strategy was to create platforms for informed debate between public institutions and citizens and also advocate for more government agencies to leverage digital communications to foster trust, increase transparency and ensure better accountability.
We hope that we can contribute our quota to increasing citizens and government’s consciousness towards rebuilding trust.
Connected Development (CODE) launched its 2018 Annual Report themed Amplifying Voices from the Grassroots, highlighting the impact of its social accountability initiative, Follow The Money, in tracking an estimate of NGN 1.3 Billion (USD 3.6 million) budgeted for projects in 69 grassroots communities across Water, Sanitation and Hygiene [WASH], Primary Healthcare and Education sectors, in the year 2018.
In the report, CODE emphasised its effort to spur stronger and inclusive growth for grassroots communities in Africa by providing them with the resources to amplify their voices; creating platforms for dialogue, enabling informed using the Follow The Money model.
Alarmed by the accelerating number of out-of-school children in Nigeria, two civil society organisations; Connected Development(CODE) and FlexiSAF Foundation have come together to combine their resources in identifying out of school children and providing quality basic education. In direct accordance with the SDG 4 and SDG 17, Connected Development and FlexiSAF Foundation are on a mission to reach these targets ahead of 2030.
Statistics show that there are about 13.2 million
Nigerian children currently not in school and this figure is increasing by the
day, particularly in the Northern part of Nigeria. Issues of insurgency,
conflicts and unrest militating the North-East combined with deep-rooted
poverty, and certain cultural factors especially in the North have pushed the
rate of out-of-school children high. Even the few educational facilities in
these rural settings are in deplorable conditions—dilapidated structures, no
libraries, congested classrooms with poor ventilation, damaged or no furniture,
causing pupils to sit on classroom floors—further discouraging children from
attending school.
The United Nations International Children’s
Emergency Fund (UNICEF) records that Girls account for 60 per cent of the
out-of-school population. For every 100 boys of primary age out of school, 121
girls are denied the right to education, worsening gender-based discrimination
and putting girls at a disadvantage. Displacement and child marriage also
significantly affect a girl’s chances of going to school. Issues of water,
sanitation and hygiene, and in many cases, insecurity affecting the delivery of
education in conflict affected areas, are contributing factors driving children
– particularly girls – away from the classroom.
Distressed by the growing number of out of school children in Nigeria,
Connected Development and FlexiSAF Foundation are partnering to identify and
verify the number of out of school children in selected states in Nigeria and
increase citizen participation through awareness raising.
According to Ahmad Salihijo Ahmad, Chairman, FlexiSAF Foundation, the
partnership comes at a time when sustainable measures must be put in place to
strengthen the quality of education in the country and curtail the growing
number of out of school children, which has grossly affected the Nation,
particularly the Northern region. “It is indeed a remarkable feat to partner
with Connected Development (CODE) in our mutual goal to reach out a helping
hand to communities in need. We will be able to have access to more communities
to provide quality basic education for all children,” he added.
CODE’s Chief
Executive, Hamzat Lawal, stated that “the future of Nigeria is strongly
determined by the quality of education of its children. How can we begin to
talk about quality education when a large proportion of Nigeria’s young ones
are out-of-school?” Lawal was worried that out-of-school children are
constantly being exposed to danger of violence, assault, exploitation and
anti-social recruitments such as terrorism, child-trafficking and kidnapping.
He noted that addressing out of school children is a challenge that the
Nigerian Government must tackle with a sense of urgency.
He also noted that the partnership will be a great leap in pursuing
the cause of reducing the number of out-of-school children. CODE is committed
to providing its resources in supporting the cause by collating the number of
out of school children and providing support in areas of monitoring and
evaluation (M&E)”. CODE and FlexiSAF Foundation partnership will bring about the reduction
in percentage of out-of-school children and create a sustainable environment
for children to study and explore their creativity.
Amina
Abubakar, Coordinator FlexiSAF Education stated that there is a lot of work to
be done in ensuring the Nigerian child goes to school. She called on the
Federal and State Governments, Civil Societies, as well as stakeholders in the
Education System, especially the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) to
commit to securing the education of the Nigerian child.
“As countries
strive to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) that addresses
attaining universal primary and secondary education by 2030, this is a wake-up
call for the Nigerian government to make educating the nation’s future leaders
a priority. We should begin to think up sustainable initiatives to resolve the
challenging factors facing out-of-school children,” Amina added.
She also
mentioned that to reach the large number of out-of-school kids, we have a long
way to go. The effort required is massive, not just for FlexiSAF Foundation and
CODE, but for Nigeria as a whole and the world at large. “It’s not enough to
just acknowledge the problem, but a swift and effective course of action 1must
be embarked upon. That is what we have began, and we are committed to staying
on this course for the long haul.”
FlexiSAF
Managing Director, Faiz Bashir stated that change can begin at the grassroots
whereby learning opportunities start with community-based education and
organising classes in community buildings so children do not have to walk
miles and miles to go to school. This is
especially critical for girls, as it reduces insecurity such as harassment and
conflict related incidents, on the way to school. FlexiSAF Foundation has, in
its effort to reach the SDG 4 target, adopted such flexible methods of teaching
out-of-school kids. These include Safe Spaces within their communities, full
scholarships to qualitative schools, one-on-one mentorship and counselling and
so forth.
He added that the partnership between CODE and
FlexiSAF Foundation aims to identify and target regions with disproportionately
high rates of out of school children, including working with leaders and other
groups to advocate for increased education, especially for girls. It will also
ensure safe and conducive learning that meets basic security and health
standards, including toilets and safe drinking water.
Detailed
plans to implement this partnership will be developed by the two organizations
in the coming months.
According to the United Nations, out-of-school children are children who are yet to be
enrolled in any formal education excluding pre-primary education.
In 2012, the Nigerian Federal Government initiated the Saving One Million Lives Program For Results (SOML PforR). The program intends to rollback child and maternal mortality in the country and saves an estimated 900,000 women and children that die each year from preventable causes. In 2015, the World Bank approved $500 million credit for the program. Subsequently, in mid-2016, the World Bank provided $55.5 million as part of the credit to the Federal Ministry of Health who then gave $1.5 million to each of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
In line with Connected Development’s work in ensuring an open government in governmental expenditure in rural communities and in our three thematic areas (which includes health), we immediately got interested in tracking the implementation of the funds across the country. On learning about the $55.5 million approval from the Bretton Woods Institution and in the last quarter of 2016, we started tracking the implementation of the $1.5 million at Primary Healthcare Centres across rural communities in Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Kano, Kogi, Osun and Yobe States. Subsequently, we arranged and had meetings with the World Bank and Federal Ministry of Health SOML PforR program team for information sharing and to share our experience in tracking the fund implementation. One of the key outcomes from these meetings is the importance of Civil Society Organisation’s involvement in the PforR implementation. It’s on this note that this CSOs roundtable was organized.
