Africa’s leading anti-corruption and social accountability initiative, Follow The Money, has emerged winner of the 2019 Council of Europe’s Democracy Innovation Award.

The award which recognizes Follow The Money as one of the leading ground-breaking initiatives in the world, that are promoting democratic principles, was received by the Initiative’s Chief Communications Officer, Kevwe Oghide at the closing plenary of the Council of Europe’s World Forum for Democracy 2019, recently concluded in Strasbourg, France.

Expressing delight about the recognition, Founder of Follow The Money, Hamzat Lawal, says this award comes with the responsibility to intensify our commitment to promote transparency and accountability in governance and to amplify the voices of the marginalised as a way to accelerate social change.

Lawal who also doubles as the Chief Executive of Connected Development [CODE] stressed the need for more African countries to adopt Follow The Money as a tool to build stronger institutions. This would place African countries on the pathway to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and the Afrucan Union Agenda 2063. He thanked the donors- Luminate, John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, Oxfam and Actionaid- who have  supported the movement and helped us reach more grassroots communities.

The Democracy Innovation Award comes at a time when Follow The Money is celebrating 7 years of leading citizens campaigns at the grassroots and have successfully tracked over $10 million and directly impacted over 4 million lives with over 6,000 dedicated volunteers using technology tools to bring voices to the front burner. 

Ms Oghide, who presented the initiative alongside over 27 brilliant initiatives from across the world, stated that, “it is incredible that we won knowing that Nigeria is not even a member state of the Council of Europe. Nigeria, Poland and France emerged finalists, yet delegates at the Council’s Hemicycle voted for Follow The Money to win the Democratic Innovation award. This evidently shows democracy at work.”

The Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Marija Pejčinović Burić, in her remark, noted that Follow The Money has shown exemplary leadership in advancing democratic governance. She added that the internet, social media and Artificial Intelligence have all democratized access to information and given millions of people their voice. The challenge is to ensure that information contributes to democracy, which Follow The Money is doing.

The World Forum for Democracy is a platform for dialogue and democratic participation which brings new ideas into the work of the Council of Europe and promotes its principles across the world. The forum is placed under the high patronage of Emmanuel MACRON, President of the French Republic and will hold between the 5th and 8th of November 2019.

Zaliha Abdullawal

Prior to joining Follow The Money, my notion of Non-Governmental Organisation was a bit different. Although, I had always been interested in humanitarian work, I could not access the right platform to build my skills. In 2017, when I got the chance to work for Connected Development (CODE), I hit the ground running. My first task was to track Universal Basic Education Intervention Funds in Kaduna State across four Local Government Areas (LGA)— Kudan, Kajuru, Zangon Kataf and Jema’a. It was a huge task at the time and I was completely overwhelmed. We vigorously campaigned for change in the Education system in Kaduna state where 1 billion naira Universal Basic Education (UBEC) funds was earmarked for the construction and reconstruction of facilities in 23 basic schools across the four LGAs. We inaugurated a committee called School Monitoring Team (SMT) which comprises of School Based Monitoring Committee, National Union of Teachers, Parents Teachers Association and over 200 community members to foster ownership of Monitory and Evaluation of government projects in their communities.

This task challenged but strengthened my ability and with tremendous technical assistance from my superiors, we were able to achieve remarkable results. Tracking UBEC Funds in Kano has now become a model adopted for tracking education funds all across Nigeria.

Through media sensitization, we were able to reach 1.4 million people with our advocacy message and 20 communities directly benefited from our campaign. Using advocacy tools like our Follow The Money radio programme, we sensitized more people and enhanced citizen’s participation in governance. Some of the visible results is the recruitment of over 30 volunteers in Kaduna, who showed interest in learning the FTM model and are presently tracking government spending in their communities.

Because Follow The Money is driven by its mission to empower marginalized communities, we are always intentional in our approach to track government spending and ensure project implementations at the grassroots level. For instance, In Likoro, a community in Kudan LGA, after community dwellers noticed funds had been allocated to construct a new fence, contractors had not begun work. FTM Team, working with the community, wrote petitions to anti-corruption agencies independently. This move sparked a reaction from the contractors who were awarded the project and they began implementation.

Similarly, In Kajuru Local Government Area (LGA), we started a campaign, #RebuildKufana, about the school with dilapidated structures in Kufana community. Children could not go to school because of the deplorable state of the school building. FTM trained Kafuna community members on how to monitor, evaluate and hold their elected representatives accountable. They also learnt how to check for quality control, as such when they noticed irregularities in the specification of materials, they stopped the contractors from continuing substandard work. The school community organized town hall meetings, inviting relevant stakeholders, and demanding for the Bill of Quantities for the project. The local government provided them with detailed information about the project and ensured contractors followed due process.

The impact of our activities made Kaduna State Basic Education Board to involve representatives of all School communities in contracting process for the 2017 action plan, in line with Open Government Partnership that Kaduna State signed up.

Nigeria is one of the top three countries with the largest absolute number of children who are stunted and wasted, according to the Global Nutrition Report of 2018. Preventable deficiencies of critical vitamins and minerals such as iron, Vitamin A, D, iodine, folic acid and zinc contribute globally to over 3 million child deaths annually. These micronutrient deficiencies are prevalent in Nigeria, particularly among young children under 5 years of age as well as women of reproductive age.

Concerned by this issue, two Non-Governmental Organisations, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and Connected Development (CODE) have partnered to advocate for increased compliance by food manufacturers on Food Fortification policies in Nigeria.

The partnership signed recently in Abuja under GAIN’s Large Scale Food Fortification Project, seeks to raise consumer awareness on the benefits of fortified foods and the dangers of micronutrient deficiencies in their food intake. Nigeria loses over US1.5 billion in GDP to Vitamins and mineral deficiencies, however, scaling up micronutrient interventions would cost the country less than USD 188 million per year, according to the World Bank.

Speaking about the project, GAIN’s Large Scale Food Fortification Project Manager, Dr Phoebe Olapeju, stated that through enhanced business operations and an improved regulatory environment, high quality and adequate fortification of staple foods has the potential to improve nutrition for 180 million Nigerians.

According to CODE’s Chief Executive, Hamzat Lawal, “Malnutrition is one of the most serious global development issues holding back millions of individuals, families and countries from achieving their full potential. Failing to address malnutrition will continue to negatively impact not only the health and wellbeing of Nigerians, but the country’s economic growth and prosperity.”

The project hopes to improve policies and compliance practices of manufacturers in the food industry. The team plans to work with the Consumer Protection Council (CPC), National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), the Ministry of Health and other regulators to strengthen regulation of fortified foods.

Actionaid, through the Youth Organizing and Leadership, in partnership with Connected Development to amplify voices of young people in Nigeria to ensure that fund allocations in State Budgets, for young people to thrive, are properly utilized for the purpose.

Governance sets the structure by which governments and public officials exercise power and make decisions to guarantee effective service delivery and foster relationships between citizens, civil society and the state. Effective governance is where state-citizen relationships are transparent, accountable, inclusive and responsive to the needs of all citizens, particularly the youths who constitute the majority – as is  the case in Nigeria. In 2019, estimates by the National Population Commission puts Nigeria’s population at about 201 million people. Of this figure, the share of the youth demography stands at about 60% of the total population. To harness demographic advantages of young people, policies must reflect youth friendliness and sensitivity in a strategic and comprehensive manner.

On the other hand, the budget of any government is a public proclamation by the government of its projected and actual expenditures, it provides vital evidence of where a government places its priorities – whether it  addresses issues that concern young people or not. The statistics on young people’s access to public services in Nigeria is very poor and this can be linked to the disconnect in the budgetary process and the non-inclusiveness of young people in the formulation, implementation and oversight stages of the budget. 

Past budgetary trends in Nigeria reveal a wide disparity between actual budgetary allocations and the amount of resources released for implementation of projects. This resource gap becomes even wider, taking  into cognizance the fact that most items on the budget are lump sums, without any kind of disaggregation of what exactly these funds are meant to achieve in terms of actual service delivery.

The CODE/ActionAid YOL Project  is a multi-country intervention under a Strategic Partnership Agreement with ActionAid Denmark and Funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). The Intervention has three (3) key strategic Objectives Quality Gender Responsive Public Services through progressive taxation, Participatory Democracy and Youth Representation, Economic opportunities and decent work for youth.

For the first phase of the project which spans from June – November 2019, Nigeria will be responding to Strategic Objective 1. 

To this end, The Youth Organizing and Leadership (Light Touch), a three-year project funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) seeks to mobilize young people and their organizations for progressive social change. It aims at enhancing young people’s power to influence public expenditure towards gender responsive public service delivery through progressive taxation. The project intends to;

• Strengthen capacity and knowledge of young people on issues of public finance, tax and GRPS 
• Generate information and education materials (research and analysis) to engage young people on issues of PF, Tax and GPRS
• Facilitate Initiatives and platforms for young people to participate in public finance engagement 
• Facilitate reflection on development trends, organizing initiatives and policy reform agenda for youth development 
• Facilitate youth engagement with progressive taxation, EPA and other related International Trade Issues

The main activities for this assignment will include:

1. Budget Analysis and Factsheet Production
   • To Mobilize  30 young people selected across different youth groups; artisans, drivers, traders and ‘street people’ as well as university students and young professionals.
   • Facilitate a participatory budget analysis workshop aimed at  producing a budget factsheet as an evidential tool for advocacy in areas   that affects young people, especially in education and health sector.

1. Budget Town hall Meetings 
   • Study and identify topical areas from the budget factsheet for a stakeholders mapping towards hosting a needs specific town hall meeting.
   • Engage relevant youth groups to understand how these issues resonates in their spaces
   • Plan a monitoring and evaluation framework to include responses to the following questions; 
     1. What is defined as success or achieving the set objectives? (example: getting tangible commitments from critical stakeholders towards mainstreaming the issues affecting young people with respect to service delivery)
     2. What specific areas or sectors will government engage in? (example: visible political will to focus on demand-driven, tax for service delivery based on identified needs from the above step)
2. Advocacy and Interactions with Sectoral MDAs on Budget and Service Delivery

• Based on the outcomes from the Town hall meetings, relevant government stakeholders  would be engaged through a courtesy and advocacy visit to key MDAs across the DANIDA States.

We call on all relevant stakeholders, government agencies, Civil societies and the general public to join in on this project to ensure better gender sensitive public service delivery.

Today is the international day of the girl when the world recognizes that there are peculiar barriers to girls attaining a life of dignity and agency.

Despite the fact that adolescent girls face challenges in exercising their right to education, healthcare and economic freedom worldwide, movements globally have made concerted efforts in campaigning for the rights of the girl. Data shows that more girls are accessing education, getting married at age 18 years and above and are accessing sexual and reproductive healthcare. For instance, school life expectancy for girls in Sub-Saharan Africa has increased from 3.3 years in 1970 to 8.8 years in 2015.

However, the systemic supply-side deficiencies such as safety in schools, limited gender-sensitive infrastructure, pedagogy and school practices have harmful implications on the overall development of the girl child. For example; teachers with a stereotypical perception of girls being quiet may not pay attention to their learning or encourage them to participate in classes. Furthermore, a school with no toilet or no separate toilets for girls and boys may cost girls attendance as they are likely to be absent from school during their menstrual periods.

The demand-side factors are strongly based on damaging cultural practices with a wider spectrum on social norms, posing as strong barriers to girls’ education and healthcare. These factors play out in different scenarios such as an increase in child marriage leading to an increase in the drop-out rate for girls.

The big question remains- what can we do as citizens to improve the lives of marginalized girls?

The well-acclaimed movement- Follow The Money empowers marginalized communities to hold governments accountable to provide need-based healthcare and education infrastructure and services in order to boost socio-economic development in Africa in the long-run. Recently, we have been asking ourselves questions on how gender-responsive our work has been within the past eight years of our existence. We’ve gone back to the drawing board and with your input, we have decided to address the needs of girls in understandable steps that we can all follow.

For instance, from the supply side (government angle), tracking government spending in schools will require us confirming if there are separate toilets for boys and girls that are (dis)ability-friendly or if there are an adequate number of female teachers from the the female teacher-training scholarship (FTTSS) award scheme in the schools. We could go as far as having separate focus group discussions with boys and girls to see how often they are able to contribute to class discussions or even measure gender parity across the different grades (classes) in schools to analyze the completion rate for girls and boys.

An interesting point to add is that non-state stakeholders are not excluded from this maze of social accountability. A general consultation with key actors such as girls’ clubs, women’s groups, as well as traditional and faith-based leaders on the problems and solutions to factors promoting and impeding girls’ empowerment in their communities. The information gotten with a full gender lens will provide more apt and representative information on challenges that need to be addressed in these communities during engagements between the government and the citizens, eg, through townhall meetings and radio shows.

The benefits of an empowered girl are actually selfish to us all. This is because when girls thrive, economies thrive- educated girls tend to have fewer and well-spaced children, take their children to hospitals, and literally contribute efficiently and effectively to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in ways we cannot imagine. If I may continue with my Economics equation which I’m trying not to bore you with, lesser children and higher productivity from educated women and girls in the next 15 years already implies a higher Per Capita Income which although may not trickle down magically to the poorest of the poor, social protection mechanisms and development programmes can eventually aid in evenly redistributing wealth and boosting economic development.

We believe in a world of possibilities but our mantra is based on the statement- “we can’t do it all.” We need partners and citizens like YOU all over the world campaigning for the right of every girl to attain a life of agency. Join us on this exhilarating journey on ifollowthemoney.org today so we can Follow The Money together to empower all marginalized girls and boys!

Ojonwa Miachi is an Education and Gender Expert. Follow her on Twitter- @ojonwa

Ahead of the G7 Summit holding tomorrow in Biarritz France, where world leaders will meet to discuss global challenges, over 50 of the World’s leading NGOs have petitioned the G7 leaders to accelerate action on gender equality.

The petition, which was coordinated by the ONE Campaign and co-signed by Connected Development [CODE] and other NGOs, warned that despite promises to do more for women and girls, the world is dangerously off-track on gender equality.

At a moment when the future of multilateralism is in doubt, this year’s G7 summit presents an unprecedented opportunity for leaders to show they can make a difference. Reducing inequality is the central theme of this year’s summit and yet gender inequality remains one of the most pervasive barriers to growth and prosperity.

According to CODE’s Chief Executive, Hamzat Lawal, the G7 leaders have an unprecedented opportunity to begin to turn the tide against gender inequality by fast-tracking the delivery of long-lasting change for girls and women across the world, including Sub-Saharan Africa.

Lawal added that inequality hinders the possibility to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals, especially in Nigeria, and urges the World Leaders to support new laws, policies and funding that will help to advance women’s rights and economic empowerment.

It is beyond belief that we will have to wait another 108 years to achieve gender equality across the world. Until this changes, leaders are ignoring the power and potential of half the world’s population, Gayle Smith, President of ONE said.

The letter calls on the leaders attending the summit to take real action and agree to independent reporting of their commitments when they meet in Biarritz.

The format of the G7 Summit will involve the leaders of the African Union, the IMF, the OECD, the UN and the World Bank.

Ijeoma Oforka

When harbingers of societal development such as poor accountability, arbitrariness, corruption, and negligence are fed fat, socio-economic progress involuntarily suffers.

It is perhaps cliche but imperative to say that the leadership of any given society either makes or mars it. In essence, the progress and advancement of a community, to a large extent, rests on the shoulders of a selected few who are either elected or appointed to lead them. Therefore, it takes the semblance of fraud, falsehood and outright deception, when votes and political appointments exchange hands with corruption and total insensitivity to the plight of the people; trading places with Commitment, Transparency, Character and Accountability.

This is the situation suffered by the people of Ikot Idem Udo of Onna Local Government Area and Idong Iniang of Eket Local Government Area, both in Akwa Ibom State. These communities are currently denied access to clean water, fencing and staff quarters projects which should have been implemented by the Saving One Million Lives Programme for Result (SOMLP4R) of Akwa Ibom State Ministry of Health. The non-existence of these public services is a reminder that government seats and coffers are being infiltrated by Nigerians who do not mean well for Nigerians and Nigeria. 

Ikot Idem Udo has a population of about 8,000 people while Idong Iniang has a population of 18,977 people. Both communities have been subjected to untold hardship in accessing basic healthcare. Sadly, their health needs are hinged on one Primary Healthcare Centre each; marred by huge inadequacies regarding, medical equipment and Instruments, drugs and WASH facilities. 

For a truth, many Nigerians, especially grassroots rural dwellers, have been marginalised and their rights trampled on by a few who continue to swindle funds appropriated for development projects in these communities. The world is watching, more importantly, the International Communities are providing aid as a gesture to put out the enraging inferno that the Nigerian populace have had to endure for so long. However, meaningful impact cannot be quantified when officials, aided by greed, mental backwardness and myopic thinking, hijack the funds and get away without any penalty.

Good health is good for all, and to be candid, not much of it can be achieved when health workers are denied access to medical supplies and equipment, compelling them to work under harsh conditions in negation to professionalism. 

It was Pericles, a prominent and influential Greek Statesman and famous Orator, who once remarked that: “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the hearts of others.” Translated thus, your good works are your legacy. Hence, when you are in a position to impact the lives of people, do so.

By and large, for a community to grow in good health, develop and advance, its leadership, at all levels, must embrace Commitment, Accountability and Transparency. Only then, will progress find root in the society.

One can only hope that after a long and tortuous wait, the people of Ikot Idem Udo who only received a bore hole facility due to  a tremendous follow up by CODE’s Follow The Money team and Idong Iniang in Akwa Ibom State, finally find relief and comfort.