By Saater Ikpaahindi

As I looked through Connected Development’s array of remarkable pictures that document the organisation’s work, many pictures grabbed my attention. Perhaps it’s because of my child protection background but this picture instantly brought me a thousand worries. The picture of children drawing water from a poorly constructed, widely gaping water well.  The thoughts that ran through my mind were; what if the children fell into the well? What if there was no adult in sight to help them out? What if they drowned? 

My mind kept racing with these thoughts as I also pondered if the water was clean enough to make these children risk their lives. Pictures like these, draw you into the reality of the limited access to clean water supply many Nigerians face especially those living in rural communities.

Although Nigeria has made great progress in the provision of clean water for its citizens, however, 59 million people in Nigeria do not have access to clean drinking water (according to WaterAid), that is approximately 1 in 3 people. This has contributed to high morbidity rates, especially among children under five. Using dirty and contaminated water increases the likelihood of contracting water borne diseases which leads to thousands of deaths yearly, disproportionately affecting women and children. According to UNICEF, 70% of diarrhoeal and enteric disease burden can be traced to poor access to adequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and this affects the poorest children the most.

Like the appalling provision of many basic amenities, the inadequate provision of clean water facilities in Nigeria can be traced to poor governance, corruption and poor accountability and transparency. Funds dedicated for the provision of basic social amenities like clean drinking water are often siphoned by public officials for their own personal enrichment, pushing millions of Nigerian’s especially women and children into extreme poverty. 

To address these issues, for the past seven years, Connected Development (CODE) has been working with marginalised communities to build their capacity to hold government accountable for the provision of social services meant for their communities. CODE’s innovative initiative Follow The Money, provides a platform for communities to track government and international aid funds for building of schools, restoration of healthcare facilities and installation of WASH facilities.

Water is an essential necessity of life; as a matter of fact, water is a matter of  life and death. Every Nigerian child deserves safe water and adequate sanitation in School, every healthcare centre deserves WASH facilities especially in relation to maternal and new-born health (MNH), every Nigerian household deserves clean drinking water and a basic toilet and, every community deserves to be open defecation free. 

It is time to take greater action. I therefore call on the Nigerian government and relevant stakeholders to accelerate efforts to improve access to WASH facilities across communities in Nigeria by adopting innovative and sustainable global best practices and institutionalising inclusive WASH policies. 

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.

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.

Concerned by the poor service delivery of Primary Healthcare Centres in Nigeria, two Non-Governmental Organisations, Nigeria Health Watch and Connected Development [CODE], have signed an MoU to advocate for improved service delivery in primary healthcare centres across the country.

The partnership, signed yesterday in Abuja, was established for the purpose of monitoring healthcare service delivery and increasing accountability in the delivery of primary healthcare services in Kano State. It will focus on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) services, and will include other services such as family planning, immunization and antenatal services.

Although, Nigeria has many PHC across the country, the performance of the healthcare centres is hindered by poor infrastructure and maintenance, insufficient drugs & vaccines and sub-standard equipment and limited health workers, factors that are hinged on financing and governance.

On the objective of the project, Director of Programmes at Nigeria Health Watch, Vivianne Ihekweazu, said; “The foundation of healthcare delivery should be through our primary health centres and this project will focus on monitoring the effective delivery of basic healthcare services, with a view to driving positive change in the quality of healthcare Nigerians have access to”.

According to CODE’s Chief Executive, Hamzat Lawal, “this partnership comes at a time when sustainable measures must be put in place to strengthen Nigeria’s healthcare system. He added that access to healthcare is one of the basic human rights and providing basic health services to people, especially at the grassroots, through standard primary healthcare system is key to stabilizing the Nation’s medical care challenges.

Strengthening healthcare service delivery is crucial to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 3; to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages, including the delivery of interventions to reduce child mortality, maternal mortality and the burden of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

About Nigeria Health Watch

Nigeria Health Watch is a not-for-profit organization that aims to advocate for the health of Nigerians, strengthen the capacity of health sector organisations, enlighten Nigerians on good health habits and practices and engage and support government and other partners to formulate and implement positive and effective health policies. Its dual strengths in health and communication enables it to provide solutions for communications and advocacy in the health sector.

About Connected Development

Connected Development [CODE] is a non-governmental organization, whose mission is to improve access to information and empower local communities in Africa. Its initiative, Follow The Money, advocates and tracks government/international aid spending in health, WASH, and education across grassroots and communities to promote and ensure open government and service delivery.

Muazu Alhaji Modu

North East in 2018 ranked highest number of out of school children in Nigeria. This is mainly caused by the devastation of the region by Boko Haram insurgency, impeding academic activities and causing the increase of the number of children that are not in school.

Another contributing factor to the accelerating number of out of school children is the deficiencies in the basic education sector— lack of  basic infrastructures, inadequate teaching material and poor qualification of teachers—are making education in the NorthEast a challenge that needs urgent intervention.

In 2016, the Nigerian Government budgeted NGN 20million, for the construction and furnishing of 2 blocks of 3 Classrooms at Tongo II Primary School in Tongo village, Gombe State under the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).

Follow The Money, known for its mission to track government spending and ensure transparency and accountability in the implementation of government or international aid projects in grassroots communities, began a campaign, #FurnishTongo, to track and oversee the completing of the Education project in Tongo II Primary School.

Follow The Money is working to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 4 –improving access to quality basic education and ensuring effective service delivery at grassroots. As the Follow The Money Chapter Lead in Gombo State, I led a team on a preliminary visit to Tongo community. There, we learned that the school had only 4 classrooms  while 2 of these  classrooms were dilapidated but still, they served as learning rooms to over 700 registered Pupils (414 Boys and 286 Girls).

Follow The Money sensitized the people of Tongo and intensively engaged local leaders, women groups, youth groups, religious heads—in the tracking  process so they could ask their elected representatives the right questions and monitor the contractors assigned the project till it is completed. One of the challenges we experienced was harrassment from political persons acusing us of working with opponents to incite rural dwellers against the government. Our lives were threatened and we were told if we did not end our campaigns, we would be locked in cells. We, however, presented documents (page of the budget where project started, tender advertisement, FOI request letters to various MDAs, reports of community outreaches etc.) to them showing FTM’s independence of any group. We told them Follow The Money is a legitimate transparency and accountability movement

We intensified our advocacy on both traditional and social media. Few days later the construction commenced and was completed  within a very short period of time. After the implementation, the ratio of students per classroom drastically reduced at the school and more children were enrolled at Tongo II Primary School. Our advocacy brought about the building of 6 additional classrooms and also created opportunity for hundreds of children to access basic education.