157, 822 citizens in five years! That is the number of people that have been impacted by the 1,234 members of the Follow The Money network of Connected Development [CODE], tracking government spending on health facilities, teaching aid, and water supply in rural communities. Much reason why these community champions were celebrated on August 15, 2017, marking five years of CODE existence, at the Silverbird Cinemas, Central Area of Abuja in the Federal Capital Territory. For the future, CODE launched the web and mobile platform – http://ifollowthemoney.org a citizen participation platform, meant for knowledge exchange, knowledge sharing, and community mobilization.

“Great ideas will not come from the present organization you are working; it comes from interaction with other people, in conferences, networking gatherings, in some locations – like Yahuza Suya ( a famous meat shop in Wuse, Abuja), and Ceddi Plaza (a shopping mall in the heart of Abuja), which was where the conversation on starting this movement – Connected Development started” explained Oludotun Babayemi, the Co-Founder of CODE, in his welcome address.

                            A cross-section of participants at the CODE at 5 event

In Nigeria, according to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) investment and technology office in the country, 2 out of 10 start-ups manage to survive, not to talk of this feat the organization has been able to achieve in few years. Mr Ben Ubiri, popularly known as Ben200, an on – air – personality with Nigeria Info FM Abuja, introduced as one of the community champions was the host. He reiterated these statistics all through the 2 – hour event that comprised film screening of past campaigns – A video shut by Deutsche Welle on the Lead Poisoning in Shikira, and the launch of the future – an animated video in different local languages of why and how citizens can join the movement.

The high point of the night was the key note speech by Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the pioneer Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) who reiterated the fact that citizens need to mobilize themselves on legitimate platforms like that of CODE which had to remain apolitical. “Even in trying times like this in our nation, we still see some young and energetic men, mobilizing and organizing less privileged communities to speak truth to power,” he said.He acknowledged the fact that corruption has eaten into the fabrics of the country, and that mass orientation by pressure groups like CODE will be worthwhile.

A cross-section of panellists at the CODE at 5 event

The keynote speech was followed by a panel comprising of social accountability advocates in the country – Oluseun Onigbinde, Lead Partner at BudgIT; Gift Omodedia, Senior Programmes Manager at Public and Private Development Center; Serah Maka, Nigeria Country Director at ONE. Others on the panel were Esther Agbarakwe, Adviser on Strategic Communication at the Federal Ministry of Environment; and Semiye Michael, the founder of DEAN Initiative while the panel was moderated by the popular online blogger – Japheth Omojuwa. The discussion hinged on how it has become pertinent for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to practice what they preach, especially on how they transition their organization to become sustainable, and not to become self-seeking, and rent – seeking organizations. Of course, two -hours isn’t enough to discuss this, but the bottom line was that CSOs should develop methodologies of incorporating the communities they serve into their organization and that their constitutions should state clearly how the leadership of such CSOs transit.

120 minutes isn’t a long time, so short that the fully occupied seats of the hall 4, at the Silverbird Cinemas, couldn’t but beg for a vote of thanks. Orchestrated by the Co-founder and Chief Executive, Hamzat Lawal who affirmed that the vision of the organization is to see the new born generation, and the future generation upholds the ideals and ideology of CODE’s Follow The Money. “No doubt, our immense thanks rest on on organizations like Indigo Trust, Omidyar Network, and a list of others, who saw the vision, and believed it is worth investing in – intellectually and financially,” Hamzat said in closing.

In global development governance and the development sector more specifically, the question of sustainability has always recurred. Ideally, if a sustainable structure is put in place, projects and programs will still continue to run, long after the initial efforts are not there anymore. In our work through which we use a knowledge-based scientific process to visualize, track and monitor funds spent for development in rural communities by the government and other development partners and ensure such funds are spent for the reason they are budgeted for, we have always thought of sustainability. One of the ways to achieve this is by letting communities own Follow The Money (FTM) process. It was based on this that we have started identifying community activists, who have been working on FTM activities four years ago.with young people, which reside in rural communities and tracks the funds themselves while we provide technical assistance.

As part of our sustainability plan, we initiated the ifollowthemoney.org, a platform that already hosts over 500 people. Furthermore, we developed the idea of creating chapters. A Follow The Money chapter can be made up of individuals, an already existing association, or a non-government organization that carries out Follow The Money activities. We are officially piloting with 4 chapters in Nigeria, which will be led by Ali Isa in Kano State; Muazu Modu in Yobe State; Erdoo Anongo of Kwasi Foundation in Benue State; and these leads, having been completely empowered to follow the money themselves, will lead in following the money in their states, mobilize more community members in the process while the core team in Abuja provides technical support. They are responsible to formalize their chapters for better governance which includes having four principal officers like the lead, a treasurer, community outreach officer, public relations officer

Starting with these pilot chapters, the core team organized an internal 2-day training for these State Chapter Leads from 29th to 30th of June, 2017 at the Ventures Platform in Abuja. The training started by reiterating and broadening some of the things they already know and work with, from Getting Data of Money to Follow, Leveraging and Drafting of Freedom of Information requests, Mapping of Stakeholders (Government Agencies, Media House, Other NGOs), Drafting Short Write-ups on Campaigns, Organizing Community Outreaches/Preparing Questionnaires, Organizing Town Hall Meetings, as well as new trainings on Mobile Journalism, Hostile Environment Reportage, Preparing Budget and Financial Reporting, Making Use of Social Media for Engagement, ifollowthemoney Platform, Management, Theory of Change, Deliverables for Local Chapters etc. These sessions were facilitated by relevant CODE personnel.

In the meantime, we want to support more chapters, and not to forget that there are already intending chapters in Gambia, Kenya, Mozambique and Togo. Yes, we say they are intending as for CODE to support an intending chapter, or to recognize it as a chapter, there must be a leader, and the lead must have independently carried out Follow The Money activities within one year, with the assistance of the core team. Anyone can Follow The Money using our methodologies, we only provide guidance to the use of Follow The Money activities, with the hope that the vision of making everyone in every community in Africa to be empowered to engage their various government on funds meant for them. So, if you want to start a chapter, why not join us at http://ifollowthemoney.org and kickstart your activities, and in one year, you become eligible to run a chapter!

After extensive parish-pump, pedestrian and partisan theatrics on the 2017 Appropriation Bill passage and minimal cause célèbre regarding its presidential assent, the 2017 Appropriation Act was finally signed into law on the 12th of June 2017 by the Acting President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo. Consequently, on 19 June 2017, as a convention, the Ministry of Budget and National Planning (MBNP) organized a public presentation of the Act. In attendance were numerous relevant governmental/non-governmental stakeholders. While I was partly impressed by Sen Udo Udoma’s (Minister of Budget and National Planning) presentation, in which he elementrified several components of the budget, let me start by registering few concerns and remarks:

First, the Budget Process – It is quite despondent that there was no sense of urgency on the part of the National Assembly to expedite the Appropriation Bill’s passage. The theatrics of the delay in the passage was driven my personal and partisan interests with utmost disregard over consequent budget implementation retardation denouement and the concerns of Nigerians. This was exactly an echolalia of what happened with the 2016 budget which affected its implementation. Nothing was learnt from the 2016 retardation. Note that, a financial year starts from 1 January of every year and ends on December 31. However, this budget cycle crisis has persisted over time and will affect the 2017 budget implementation, as well as the economic growth rate assumption of 2.2% by the government as discernible in its Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (EGRP).

Secondly, Nigeria is really a poor country – While Nigerians dance around the epileptic euphoria of being an oil-rich country, it’s imperative to note that the international energy dynamics have changed with oil losing its worth on a daily basis. While the country’s 2017 budget is at NGN7.44t ($25b), the highest ever, for a country of over 180 million population, this shows Nigeria is poor. The budget per capita is NGN40,000, roughly $100. That is what the government intends to spend on each Nigerian in the year. This is with the endemic poverty, low illiteracy and life expectancy rates, gross infrastructural deficit and low manufacturing capacity. Comparatively, Indonesia’s 2017 budget is at $158b for a population of 257 million putting the budget per capita at $614. Notably, as one of Nigeria’s former economic comparators, it has outperformed Nigeria on an avalanche of macro-economic metrics with far better infrastructure. Furthermore, the budget of the State of California in the United State alone for 2017 is at $179b.

The shocking part is that Nigeria’s $25b budget has a deficit of NGN2.35t (est. of $8b). This really means Nigeria is poor, for her not to be able to fund such nanoscopic deficit. In the 2016 fiscal year, Apple Inc. made revenue of $215b. Nigeria’s expected revenues from oil this year is roughly at $8b. This shows innovation and technology are the future of today’s world. But Nigeria cannot be considered ready for this, as she also appropriated a petty NGN41.7b for capital expenditure in Science and Technology in the budget.

Thirdly, Capital Expenditure – While the government prides itself for raising capital expenditure from 15% in 2015 (which is quite unbelievable) to 31% in 2017 [which is commendable], the country has to do more in this regard. The government cannot basically be using the budget for recurrent costs.

Major MDA Capital Allocations – Source, Budget Office of the Federation

Going back to the Minister’s presentation and further contents of the budget, he commented, “The budget was designed to expand partnership between public and private sectors, including development capital to leverage and springboard resources for growth and restore the economy, all in line with the ERGP’  In sum, the budget intends to focus on:

1.      Infrastructural expansion – NGN553.7b for Works, Power and Housing and NGN241.7b for Transport. This is to spur growth, improve ease of doing business, facilitate diversification efforts, fund agricultural value chain and provide an enabling environment for businesses.
2.      NGN 46b for the establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in each of the geo-political zones to drive manufacturing and exports – While this is welcoming. It seems it’s at this time Nigeria is really thinking of development. It can also be said that low oil prices is forcing the country to manufacture ideas. Its run-of-the-mill economic sense that if you cannot provide sufficient infrastructure and environment for businesses that you establish SEZs for such to attract foreign and domestic investors. East Asian countries such as Singapore, Indonesia and China all established such zones in the 70s and 80s. Nigeria is late to this party.
3.      Encouraging the growth of small and medium industries through the recapitalization of the Banks of Industry and Agriculture with NGN15b to increase access to financing.
4.      And providing a social safety net for poor Nigerians.

Key Assumptions and Macro-Framework of 2017 Budget – Source, Budget Office of the Federation

In furtherance, the NGN7.44t budget has key assumptions such as: oil production at 2.2mbpd, benchmark oil price at US$44.5/b, the exchange rate at N305/US$ and the aforementioned economic growth rate of 2.2%. The budget also envisages total revenue of NGN5.08t, exceeding that of 2016 by 30.2%, with capital expenditure at NGN2.36t.

Moving forward, first, the problem has always been implementation crisis as well as the lack of transparency, accountability and citizen engagement in governmental spending. There is a great need for increased transparency and accountability in the budget’s implementation with updates on capital releases for effective public oversight. This is following the Minister of Finance comment at the event that the government already has the first tranche capital release of NGN350b. Secondly, while there are already promises in this respect, both from the Executive and Legislature, something should be done quickly about the budget cycle crisis. Topical commitments to see that the 2018 budget is passed by December this year should be followed with sufficient political will and commitment to have that realized. Ultimately is swift implementation of the budget considering we are already at the half of the year.

I wish the government goodluck with the budget implementation.

Chambers Umezulike is a Senior Programme Manager at Connected Development and a Development Expert. He spends most of his time writing and choreographing researches on good and economic governance. He tweets via @Prof_Umezulike.

Put seven people from the different continent in a room, and let them share experiences of how growing – up looks like in their various continent. You will get different perspectives. Ask same people, how they think their growing up could have been made smarter, I am sure they will not give you the same answer. So, do we think we have general solutions to today’s world problems? Are we living some people behind, especially in the post-cold war era? Whether it’s populism, liberalism, or extremism – it seems there is a new world order, and marginalized communities are starting to feel they have a voice, and they really want to leverage on this voice to make a certain statement!

“It is not really about liberal democracy, it is about identifying what works for your community, for your people, and what makes you tick as a nation” a resolution from a heated debate that ensued between myself, a Chinese, a Cameroonian, and an Ethiopian while passing through the border control at Frankfurt, Germany. It’s another edition of the Global Media Forum in Bonn, and I will be attending the Forum again for the second year in a row – this time to join in the discussion about Identity and Diversity. The Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum is an international congress that provides a platform for more than 2,000 media representatives, and experts from the fields of politics, culture, business, development and science.

At the end of my Junior High in 1993, Samuel Huntington published an article in the Foreign Affairs on The clash of civilizations and he reiterated his hypothesis that people’s cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. Fast forward to 2017, the world is facing the challenge of democracy decline in developing countries, alignment between groups that find common goods amongst themselves – Qatar, Iran, Syria, China and Russia; the new revolution in France – Le Marche, which is either Left or Right; the Isolated North Korea; the British exit from the European Union; and not to forget the emergence of the blockchain technology that breaks the monopoly of powerful central banks and government agencies in maintaining single entities.

As a matter of fact, the media is not immune to this change in world order. It is becoming difficult for the media to decipher fact from lies! Cultures can decide to have their own media and share with the world, for some people – Twitter and Facebook have become their media, and as the world evolves from the 24-hour news stream, it is becoming more challenging for the media to communicate solutions. For the next three days (June 19 – 21), I look forward to engaging with delegates at the Global Media Forum to designing interdisciplinary approaches for meeting the challenges of the new world era, and explore how the media can play a central role in this post – factual time.

To follow the conversation at the 2017 Global Media Forum 2017 in Bonn, Follow The Official event Twitter handle – @DW_GMF; Official Event Hashtag #dw_gmf; and also our Twitter handle @connected_dev 

Oludotun Babayemi is the co -founder of Connected Development [CODE] popularly known for its Follow The Money Project in Nigeria, and now in other countries in Africa. You can schedule a meeting with him by commenting on this blog post, and via his Twitter handle – @dotunbabayemi

Photo Credit: Water Aid

Water is life and sufficient water supply is central to life and civilization. Water is part of the five basic human needs and plays a key role in the other four. Nigeria is abundantly blessed with water resources. However, as at 2015, only 69% of Nigerians have access to improved water supply with 57% of them being of rural population. During the oil boom days of the 1970s and early 1980s, the country invested hugely in water resources development, primarily in the construction of multipurpose dams which were meant to control flood, provision of water for domestic and industrial uses, the environment, hydro-power generation, control of riparian rights releases and for fishing, inland waterways, livestock and irrigated agriculture amongst others.

The responsibility of water supply in Nigeria is shared between three tiers of government – federal, state and local. While the federal government is in charge of water resources management and state governments have the primary responsibility for urban water supply through state water agencies; local governments together with communities are responsible for rural water supply. To improve manpower supply for the water resources sector, the National Water Resources Institute, Kaduna was established in 1979, running certificate, remedial and National Diploma and Higher National Diploma and professional post graduate courses in water resources. Preceding this was the establishment of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources (FMoWR) in 1976 with the mandate of developing and implementing programs, policies and projects that will lubricate sustainable access to safe and adequate water to meet the cultural, economic development, environmental and social needs of all Nigerians. The FMoWR has 12 River Basin Development Authorities under the Ministry, responsible for developing and planning irrigation work, water resources, and the collection of hydrological, hydro-geological data.

The National Water Supply and Sanitation Policy was approved in 2000, encouraging private-sector participation and provides for institutional and policy reforms at the state level. However, little has happened in both respects. As at 2007, only four of the 36 states and the FCT (Cross River, Kaduna, Lagos and Ogun States) have introduced public-private partnerships in the form of service contracts. While the federal government has a decentralization policy in this regard, little decentralization has happened. In addition, the policy also lays emphasis on rural water and sanitation through community participation. It targeted to increase water coverage from 43% to 80% by 2010 and 100% by 2015. This was not met. In addition, the capacity of local governments to plan and carry out investments, or to operate and maintain systems with respect to rural water management has remained low despite efforts at capacity development. As a result, the FMoWR and the river basin development authorities have been directly carrying off water facilities provision such as boreholes in rural communities.

In 2003, a Presidential Water Initiative: Water for People, Water for Life, was launched by then President Olusegun Obasanjo. The initiative had ambitious targets to increase water access (including a 100 percent target in state capitals), 75% access in other urban areas, and 66% access in rural areas. However, little has been done to implement the initiative and targets have not been met. The National Water and Sanitation Policy was also launched in 2004 with emphasis on water management and conservation. Nigeria was also not able to reach the Millennium Development Goal for water and sanitation. In June 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari approved a Water Resources Roadmap (2016 – 2030) with the goal of reaching 100% water supply to Nigerian citizens by 2030. The roadmap encompasses several priorities including: the establishment of a policy and regulatory framework for the sector; development and implementation of a National Water Supply and Sanitation Programme to attain the Sustainable Development Goals 6; identifying alternative sources for funding the delivery of water supply and sanitation through improved collaboration with development partners, states and local government authorities, communities and the private sector [Partnership for Expanded Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (PEWASH)] etc. It’s hoped that this does not go down history as one of the country’s numerous policies in the sector that was not thoroughly implemented.

There have been enormous contributions of several external partners with respect to water supply in Nigeria, rural water provision especially, and the Nigerian government welcomes such contributions. These partners include the African Development Bank (ADB), the EU, JICA, UNICEF, USAID, WaterAid, Action Against Hunger and the World Bank. The ADB and the World Bank provide loans to the federal government; the EU, JICA and USAID provide grants to the government; the UNICEF and WaterAid receive donations from the public and grants from governments to implement their projects in cooperation with, but not through the government. Even many domestic NGOs all have programs on the provision of rural water supply to counter the water crisis in many of such communities.This is through direct project implementation and advocacy. This is where Connected Development comes in, using its Follow The Money program to track governmental expenditure on rural water provision in rural communities to facilitate service delivery and provision of clean water. The program also advocates for governmental intervention to address the aquatic needs of most of these communities.

At this time, what is key is the provision of financial resources from all concerned parties to finance the Water Supply Section of the PEWASH Phase I (2016 – 2020) of the FMoWR’s which is at the estimate of NGN 108 billion. There are also key challenges with respect to the management of water facilities around the country. In many rural communities, water boreholes are abandoned and cannot be maintained over the lack of a preceding regime for the funding and maintenance of such water facilities. This has continued for sometime and has to be checked. Thus, it is imperative that the government encourages user participation in the management of water facilities especially at the rural level with realistic water tariff structures. In addition, there is a need for proper coordination between the different levels of government and the public. Ultimately, a recurring challenge is the unavailability of adequate and reliable data upon which planning, analysis, and water management can be based. Data on characteristic patterns in hydrological and meteorological changes over time need to be monitored with utmost sense of duty. This is exceedingly important for efficient planning and service delivery.  

Chambers Umezulike is a Programme Manager at Connected Development and a Development Expert. He spends most of his time writing and choreographing researches on good and economic governance. He tweets via @Prof_Umezulike.

[The DG of Budget Office, Ben Akabueze making a  presentation during the Budget Transparency and Accountability Workshop]

It is widely accepted that transparency in government leads to the generation of government accountability since it allows citizens of a democracy to reduce government corruption, bribery and other malfeasance, and control their government. It is also widely accepted that an open, transparent government allows for the dissemination of information and proceedings of government, which in turn forces government to be accountable, helps to guarantee societal progress and effective public oversight, while ensuring participation.

There have been several transparency, accountability and participation movements all over the world. Such movements in developing countries have more justifications for clamouring for such as a result of poor governance, systemic wrecking of public funds, public records inaccessibility and impecunious citizen participation in governance. As a result, citizens of such countries have found it increasingly difficult to hold their governments to account.

This is the case of Nigeria, where several non-profits and movements have been pushing for greater governmental accountability and transparency. And for the first time since the history of the country, the present administration made a striking commitment by signing unto the Open Government Partnership (OGP). The OGP is a multilateral and multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from national governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, harness new technologies to strengthen governance and fight corruption. Nigeria getting on-board the partnership through President Buhari’s commitment to such resulted in a synthesis of government and civil society efforts to realize open government in the country.

Currently, Nigeria just started implementing the National Action Plan (NAP), a key process of the OGP. The plan has 4 commitments that both the government and civil society have made and are implementing across ensuring fiscal transparency, fighting corruption, improving citizenry access to information and citizen engagement.

In line with these developments, the Budget Office of the Federation (BoF) and the Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative organized a workshop on budget transparency and accountability on 9 May 2017 at Transcorp Hilton Hotels, Abuja. In attendance were several international and domestic stakeholders from the government, civil society and private sector. The workshop was organized to allow the Nigerian government examine how it can bolster transparency and participation outcomes in the country with focus on budget transparency – how budget information can be made more accessible, how to move forward in implementing reforms that improves Nigeria’s Open Budget Index Score (OBIS).

The workshop majorly kicked off through a presentation by the Director-General of BoF on Transparency, Accountability and Participation: Reforms and Why It Matters. He used his presentation to highlight progresses made on open government in the country, detailing the OGP and its NAP Commitments. He also mentioned that an area that requires commitments and attention of all relevant stakeholders is Nigeria’s OBIS which as at 2015 was at number 24 on the ranking under insufficient. He also mentioned that in a bid to counter such embarrassing trend, the BoF is on the verge of commissioning the Citizen’s Budget Portal where citizens would have timely information of budget processes including contracting and implementation. In addition, the portal will have further contents such as the BoF Help Desk and Hot Lines to take questions from the general public on budget issues and implementation.

This was followed by a presentation by Atiku Samuel of BudgIT on the Status of Budget Transparency in Nigeria. He took his time to explain the international standards of budget transparency and how the OBIS is measured. After this was a session on How to Make Budget Data More Accessible by Atzimba Baltazar of COMETA. She emphasised the need for a Citizen’s budget which should be a few paged document on governmental revenues, debts and expenditure in a fiscal year using infographics and cartoons to simplify understanding for the citizenry. She lifted lessons Nigeria could learn from countries such as Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa where citizen’s budgets are already been issued out.

The last session was a group discussion on 3 key questions: 1). Do you have enough information on the budget? 2). Who do you go to access the information and 3). How do you prefer to access this information? The resolutions after the group discussions on the questions, respectively, are:

1). Yes, while we have information on the budget including the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, Budget Proposal, Appropriation Act, Budget Implementation Reports etc. the problem is that accessibility to these documents atimes are not timely. Most of them are not in open source formats. Most of the budget line items are not detailed enough, and ultimately, a lay man would not be able to understand the technicalities on most of these documents. 2). It was generally agreed that this should be from the Budget Office, Ministry of Finance and few other primarily concerned MDAs. 3). In open source format – the citizen’s budget and the citizen’s budget portal will go a long way in assisting in this regard.

While one must applaud the BoF and the present administration on efforts to use open government as a tool in fighting corruption, increasing participation and ensuring effective public oversight, there should be sufficient governmental political will in implementing the NAP, other consequent commitments and responding to Freedom of Information (FOI) Requests. For CODE (Follow The Money), the citizen’s budget portal will be largely utilitarian in accessing key budget information for rural communities which we fail to access on time even through piles of FOI requests. Such will enable us take such details down to rural communities and in building their capacity for effective public oversight, ensuring service delivery and in holding their governments accountable.

Chambers Umezulike is a Programme Manager at Connected Development and a Development Expert. He spends most of his time writing and choreographing researches on good and economic governance. He tweets via @Prof_Umezulike.

Connected Development [CODE] has won the ONE Africa 2016 Award recognizing, rewarding, and advancing the exceptional work of organisations, founded by Africans and based in Africa, dedicated to helping Africa achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

It’s initiative, Follow The Money, the largest volunteer grassroots movement on transparency and accountability in Africa, emerged winner among three finalists, presented by Bono, the lead singer of the UK group U2, and co-founder of ONE Campaign, during the Mo Ibrahim Foundation Governance forum, that was held on Saturday, April 8, 2017 in Marrakech, Morocco.

The Chief Executive of Connected Development, Hamzat Lawal on behalf of the organization, received the award. The Award highlights the dynamism and achievements of African groups and organisations that are building a better future for their communities, countries and continent. “We are super excited to be the recipient of this award and also thankful to ONE Campaign for this great opportunity. This Award restates the continental belief in our rural development works. This we warmly appreciate. And ultimately, this is timely and will be exceedingly utilitarian in broadening our continental impacts through facilitating development in marginalized communities, as well as empowering them to stand up and hold their leaders accountable.” said Lawal who also doubles as the Co-Founder of Follow The Money.

The 2017 Governance Forum which focused on violent extremism and migration, participation and democracy, inclusive economic growth and jobs for youth.  brought together various thought leaders in Africa and the World at Large including the Emir of Kano, HRH Sanusi Lamido Sanusi; the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Amina J. Mohammed; Former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan; Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, Former Finance Minister, Okonjo Iweala, Africa Development Bank President, Akinwunmi Adeshina, among other dignitaries.

For any press enquiries

Celestina Obiekea

Tel: +234-09-291-7545

Email: celestina@connecteddevelopment.org

Editor’s Note:

Connected Development [CODE] is a non-government organization [NGO] whose mission is to improve access to information and empower local communities in Africa. Our initiative, Follow The Money advocate, visualize and track government spending and international aid spending in rural communities.

On 29 and 30 March 2017, the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice through its Civil Society Advocacy to Support Anti-Corruption in Nigeria organised a 2-day workshop to build the capacity of selected CSOs and journalists on the concept of Open Government Partnership (OGP) and the implementation United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) in Nigeria including the second UNCAC review process. The workshop was also for enhancing the capacity of the invited organizations in their policy advocacy and engagement with relevant agencies of government around the issues.

In attendance were around 30 persons from mainly civil society organisations, including focal persons for the UNCAC review and OGP from EFCC, TUGAR and Ministry of Justice who were invited to the opening ceremony.

Highlights of the workshop include, first, the identification and use of red flags to monitor procurement processes session led by the personnel of Bureau of Public Procurement. He used the session to bring to the fore, key processes of procurement from the planning stage to evaluation, explaining how contracts are awarded, how contractors bid and how one can file a petition if not comfy with the bidding outcome. He also displayed to the participants, key pages of the open contracting website portal (being developed) through which all information on procurement and contracting from all federal agencies will be accessed online.

Secondly, there was a session on UNCAC Review Process and Mechanism with focus on chapters 2 and 5 of the convention. Chapter 2 was on Preventable Measures on Corruption while 5 was on Assets Recovery. The role of CSOs in the review process was also highlighted and discussed.

Thirdly and ultimately was a session on the OGP, led by Mr Stanley Acholonu of BudgIT. He used the session to highlight the 4 themes on Nigeria’s National Action Plan (NAP), a plan to be implemented in 2 years. The themes are Fiscal Transparency, Anti-Corruption, Citizen Engagement and Access to Information. There are 14 commitments under these themes with outcomes, indicators, activities, timeline, responsible institutions etc. He also mentioned of the review regime of the NAP and the importance of CSOs to be in either of the working groups. The latter are 7, namely, Fiscal Transparency, Anti-Corruption, Citizen Engagement and Access to Information, Innovation and Technology, Communications and Monitoring and Evaluation. These working groups are made up of governmental personnel and CSOs that meet regularly to access implementation. The roles of CSOs in the implementation include putting pressure and reminding the government of the commitments, carrying off independent review process and providing assistance to the government in the implementation of the NAP.

The workshop was a phenomenal one. I also met interesting participants and elemental stakeholders from several organizations whose group contributions were so helpful, and offside discussions during tea and lunch breaks, I learnt so much from. The OGP process most especially is the hope of Nigeria to get governance right. I hope we realize most of the commitments within the 2 year window.

Chambers Umezulike is a Programme Manager at Connected Development and a Development Expert. He spends most of his time writing and choreographing researches on good and economic governance. He tweets via @Prof_Umezulike.