Geared towards ensuring transparency and accountability during the forthcoming general elections, Connected Development [CODE] has launched a Real-Time (Web-Based Map) Situation Technology, Uzabe, that would observe and report the presidential and gubernatorial elections right as it is happening.

CODE has partnered with technology giant, Ushahidi, on using Uzabe as an Open Situation Awareness Room (OSAR) for gathering real-time security intelligence and observing the electoral process. With Uzabe mapping tool, CODE will establish early warning systems for communities and voters; and strengthen mitigation and emergency response during elections.

Riding on CODE’s participation in observing electoral processes since 2013 in Kenya, 2015 in Nigeria and 2016 in the USA, the Organisation seeks to, again, ensure peaceful electoral process, promote national reconciliation and improve quality of elections in Nigeria using Ushahidi technology tools. 

The Chief Executive of CODE, Hamzat Lawal, expressed enthusiasm about the impact of Uzabe in promoting transparency and accountability in the 2019 General Elections observation. According to him, Uzabe will strengthen citizens’ participation and engagement in deciding a better future for our country. The technology platform helps the Nigerian citizens to give   situation and iWitness report from all polling units, across the 36 States, in real-time.

Lawal stated that “using Uzabe technology tool to observe election and report intelligence, is a way of protecting our democracy. Our intention is to provide real-time reports on security intelligence that would strengthen fair electoral processes, mitigation and emergency response during violence and establish early warning systems for vulnerable communities.”

CODE is a Non-Governmental Organization, whose mission is to improve access to information and empower local communities in Africa. Its Follow The Money initiative tracks government and international aid spending in rural communities to ensure and promote open government and service delivery. Since 2012, CODE has tracked an estimate of USD 1 million (in budgeted sums for projects) across 100 communities in over 25 Nigerian states, improving over 1 million rural lives. 

By: Hyeladzira James Mshelia

Gender issues continue to plague our World. Generally, women are mostly at a disadvantage and their roles and contributions to society are often marginalised. We have fewer opportunities for economic participation than men, limited access to basic education, greater health and safety risk. We often experience career interruptions as a result of being the primary caregiver at the home front, and our battle against slow occupation growth is far from being won.

In public affairs, women have to fight for a seat at the table, and when we do get a seat, the vocal ones among us are often silenced. Little wonder, ‘too ambitious’, ‘bossy’ and ‘assertive’, are adjectives used to describe a woman rightfully taking what’s her due. Research shows that women are victims of rape and sexual assault at the workplace. Psychologists, Potter and Banyard reported that 38% of employed women had experienced sexual harassment at the workplace.

If your interest and competence take you to a job role that is traditionally for men, your achievements may not count because you are a woman. Today, pseudo-conservative societies and cultures believe a woman cannot be beautiful and smart at the same time.

While there is a lot of awareness and consciousness with addressing issues of gender inequality, it is important to further emphasise that women are still at a disadvantage and the kinds of policies that entrench this mentality are misguided. It is important for gender mainstreaming in the public and private sectors, backed with policies that can help address issues that place women at a disadvantage.

As a woman switching between entrepreneurship and multicultural workplaces, my growth has not been devoid of ‘gender bias’ challenges. I have attended workshops where my questions were either ignored or the answer was addressed to the man seated next to me. I have had customers that refused to buy my perfumes because they believed a woman should not be ‘that industrious.’

Nevertheless, I’ve not let that hold me back. I do not believe that just because I’m female, I cannot reach the same heights that my male counterparts can. Thus, despite the marginalisation, women have proven to be much more– mothers, farmers, managers, chief executives of multinationals, decision-makers, governors,, breadwinners and wives. There is absolutely no end to what a woman can achieve.

There should be a balance in our society where women can do just as much as men. Women should be given equal opportunities at the workplace and organisations should actively drive diversity and inclusion where policies are also in favour of women. There should be free career trainings for women, and use of gender neutral titles in job descriptions. Organisations should state their  family-friendly benefits, parental leave and child care subsidies benefit families and future base of employees.

Women are taking charge, making decisions, and leading successful businesses around the world. But even with these successes, it can feel like an uphill battle to climb your way to the top. In celebration of International Women’s Day 2019, the race is on for gender balance where men and women have equal rights in the workplace, in public affairs, at home, and in the society in general. The success mantra for men as well as women is the same so women deserve equality.

As a child, I loved playing the “Profession” game. From around the neighbourhood, kids will huddle together in a circle, and randomly pick a profession they dream of becoming, with rhythmic clapping and dancing. The trick was that the person who mentioned a profession already mentioned is knocked out of the circle until there are two or three kids still in the circle. It was a thing of pride to be one of the “last-kids-standing”. To always be a part of the winning kids, I felt sticking to a profession that was unique and not easily remembered, was the trick.

This began my journey to becoming an accountant. Thus, even though I was meant to be in Science class back in secondary school, I opted for the social sciences, because “accountant” stuck on my mind, and my love for figures and numbers wouldn’t go away. I knew accounting was what I wanted and there was no going back. Through hard work and passion, I won best in class in secondary school and this drove me to major in Accounting. With scientific evidence of working hard already playing out in my life, I further made a decision of not just being a pragmatic accounting graduate but a pragmatic chartered accountant.

The ICAN journey was not easy. It involved closing from work and going for evening classes, hence, I barely had a life outside preparations for the exams because I was struggling with office deliverables and reading for my exams. I knew the fulfilment and benefits I will get from being a Chartered accountant- including, improved capacity to effectively manage an entity or country from the financial perspective. However, it required herculean financial and time resources, of which I had constraints.

At last, on May 9, 2018, I overcame all the hurdles and was inducted as an Associate Chartered Accountant (ACA) with  The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN). Apart from hard work, I was blessed with amazing tutors, a supporting family, friends and Connected Development (CODE). Working with the CODE team so far, has enabled me to hone my accounting skills. CODE has given me the opportunity to meet with professional mentors who have also motivated me to strive to be the best in my profession. I have also had the opportunity to train staff in order to improve their expense reconciliation skills and ensure they have basic financial management knowledge. Also, my interaction with other departments such as the Programmes and Community Engagement units has availed me the opportunity to learn programme roles and responsibilities in order to effectively carry out my duties in financial project management, such as project budgeting and financial reporting.

Follow The Money which is an initiative of CODE; tracks, advocates and visualises government spending in rural communities. Through this, we ensure rural dwellers have access to education, health, water, sanitation and hygiene facilities. Basically, we make sure the government is accountable to its citizens. As the accountant and internal control specialist, I follow the “follow-the-money” team to ensure our organisation is accountable to rural communities – the bane of our existence, and our donors all around the world.  Hence, I am the Chief Follow The Money Specialist.

Accounting has allowed me to grow and learn both professionally and personally. Although it is a competitive field, it offers fantastic opportunities for career progression in different organizations, industries and countries. Accounting is not only the commercial language of an organization it is also at the centre of ever-changing business dynamics and management practices.

However, we don’t have to be “official” or possess “full technical capacity” to hold our governments accountable. It is important for us to track government spending within our communities in order to ensure sustainable development for all. A great way to start is to join ifollowthemoney.org. Have you done that? Sign up today!

Retreats allow organizations to develop or review their mandate. To this effect, Connected Development (CODE) organized a 3 (three) day retreat from August 20 to 22, 2017 for members of the organization. This retreat is the first of its kind in the organisation. It was organized to encourage team bonding and establish the strategy for scaling the organization’s Follow The Money project.

But how do you strategize with Baboons, Warthogs, and Waterbuck flocking around your living area? Not to forget, this happened in a Games Reserve. Does this mean we can as well learn from how animals bond with themselves? Yes, we did, no thanks to the morning drills led by Anthony Agbor, one of the trustees at CODE, who mimicked the team building exercises to reflect people – people interactions, and interpersonal respect for nature. And talking about life, the underground water challenge won by Michael Etta, will ever live in the memories of everyone that swam in the Wiki Warm Springs. It actually allowed us to understand that there are some people amidst us, that were aquaphobic, while some broke that jinx at the spring.

Amidst the play and excitement, we had two presentation sessions focused on establishing the mandate of the organization, while the second was on Personality and Character Reformation. The first session led by Oludotun Babayemi reiterated CODE’s mission as is empowering marginalized while- envisioning a world where everyone, even  in remote part of the world can hold their government accountable was agreed as the organization’s vision.

Second Session was led by Anthony on personality development. Tony stated that the title of his session was bore out of the fact that everyone’s expectation from the retreat is bonding, He noted that understanding oneself and others will help us connect with the mission and vision statement of CODE, like he said ‘I am built to shape people and to build communities’, therefore if you identify with yourself and know who you are, people will definitely look for you. He went further to say that the retreat therefore provided us with the atmosphere to think because if you cannot think you cannot take action or your actions will be limited, we here at CODE are looking at how to help marginalised communities, we are not the marginalised but we think on how to help those that are marginalised.

The culture of follow the money is born out of passion, We are who we are because of what we think and as such every human being is an architect of his/her society  therefore our society now is CODE, we have to study how CODE works, the word for a true society is ‘’Unity in Diversity’’ this means our little contribution can stabilise a society, the beauty we have as a people is our unique attribute. People who are recognised are people who stood firmly on what they believe in, and that is what CODE is asking for, so that we can stand on the 3R’s (Recognition, Respect and Reputation). The community feedback session led by Halima Baba, another trustee, involved team members talking about their experience, lessons learnt, and recommendations. ‘I use to think retreat are only for board members, management team and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), but it was a rare privilege to interact with the board members’ bonding with people from different part of the country and religion, coming together to establish the mission and vision of the organisation while resolving to uphold the CODE culture, but most importantly act as a family.

For me, It was an amazing experience that renewed the passion for the CODE culture. Likewise bonding with the board members, and every other staff, just like everyone did, reinvigorated my understanding of unique personality traits. This is one retreat that the memories will remain fresh in the mind of all that attended.

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!

International Women’s day , March 8 is a day set aside to celebrate social, political, cultural,and economical achievement for women around the world. The theme for this year is women in the changing world of work, Planet 50:50 by 2030 while the goal is to ensure actors step up gender equality towards a planet where world of work works for all women. This requires that policies should be set in place to promote and protect women in their workplace and the economy at large, bridging gender gap and promoting gender parity.

To commemorate this year’s IWD, African Youth Initiative on Population, Health, and Development (AfrYPoD) organised an event co-sponsored by eight (8) other organisations including Connected Development (CODE). This event brought together people from different youth led and women centered organisations. The 3- hour long event was interesting, event filled and informative. It covered experience sharing from all the organisations present, organisations were asked to share experiences on how they have taken bold steps in helping women cater for the welfare as well as promoting women’s right.

Connected Development was not left out as we highlighted how we use our ‘Follow the Money project’ to track funds meant for rural communities, projects like-  the World bank funds for the Girl child education project in five northeastern states in Nigeria and the clean cook stove project, these projects were highlighted as they are gender specific.

The highlight of the event apart from the experience sharing was when Connected Development officially launched her report on “An examination of girls’ education in Nigeria and Follow the money 2016 report and Project Pink Blue’s Nigerian language translation of Breast cancer materials for women. Resolutions from participants include increased sensitization and drive advocacy for the domestication of Violence against person’s prohibition Act in states while promoting women empowerment.

I was particularly excited to have attended the event, seeing young, vibrant, and intelligent  women ready to take up challenging roles and working towards the actualization of planet 50:50. Moreso,  the men present pledged their support towards helping us achieve gender equality.

It was a rich, informative and engaging event  and I was particularly inspired to #BeBoldforChange and proud to be a woman.

So many persons believe that practicing accounting in a not-for profit is challenging, boring and annoying, however, I beg to differ with the last two adjectives. Working as the Finance Officer at Connected Development [CODE]  has been both challenging and exciting at the same time.

Okay we know Accounting is the art of identifying, recording, classifying and summarizing in a significant manner and in terms of money, transactions and events, which are in part at least, of a financial character and interpreting the results thereof to make informed decisions. while Financial reporting has to do with reporting transactions and providing receipts so as to justify every transaction made while adhering to the seven principles of financial management for Non Governmental Organizations which encompass stewardship, accountability, viability, transparency, integrity, accounting standards and consistence.

For credibility purpose when reporting, you will always be expected  to provide receipt to justify every item included in the financial report. Getting receipts which shows proof of payment can be somewhat difficult especially when dealing with people in rural communities or trying to suggest the use of cheapest means of expenditure to them, but I thought, why not create a system that would work for me and by extension the organization. CODE’s mission is to empower marginalized communities which results to the focus of most of our projects in rural communities. Working with people in rural communities can be challenging but the quicker you can get a system that will work for you, the better, instead of preventable oscillations.

In order to create a working system, I devised a mechanism of developing a form receipting. This receipt does not necessarily carry the “typed organisation’s letter headed” document but a form where it can be handwritten and signed by parties involved.I also developed what I termed the “unreceipted” transport claim document where community reporters would have to list out all local transportation expenses incurred during the course of the the respective projects such as canoe fares, bike fares, buses etc. This is in an effort to ease reporting for me and to justify every single penny leaving the organisation’s purse.

After all, in accounting, reconciliation is the process of ensuring that the balances of two account are in agreement through making sure that money budgeted would later reconcile with  the actual money spent, whether it was over-budgeted or under-budgeted. One of the ways in which reconciliation can take place is  examining/matching existing records and receipts for effective documentation.

So you see NGO accounting is not so difficult especially when the personnel involved can deploy strategies and creativity for quality accounting. Next time you think NGO accounting is boring, challenging and annoying, think again – In fact I can emphatically say it is interesting, yeah it can be challenging but exciting.

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.”– Sydney J. Harris

An average Nigerian work 9 hours/day, 47 hours /week and we barely have time to rest, we are always in a hurry to get things done, in a hurry even on the highway. The question that comes to mind is: Why the hurry? Where are we really rushing to?

But how many times do we take out time to check our health or even rest, slow down to think and not overwork ourselves. The Nigerian watch revealed that  75% of Nigerians fall sick due to work stress. We visit hospitals most times when the ailment is at a critical stage and often times most ailment are work stress related because we do not take out time to relax. We rather just get drugs from a roadside pharmacy when we have the slightest symptoms, thereby worsen the case that ought to have a proper diagnosis.

Every job has stress and at some point we feel the work pressure and this stress can occur in different forms like trying to fulfill a challenging obligation or trying to meet a deadline. But when work stress persist then this can be harmful to our health. Work stress can contribute to health issues such as headache, sleep disorder, difficulty in concentrating, short temper, it can also weaken the immune system amongst other noticeable symptoms.

Record shows that some persons deal with stress using different unhealthy mechanisms ranging from abusing drugs and smoking or even taking alcohols, overeating or unhealthy eating and other unhealthy coping mechanisms.

From my personal observation, I discovered that more Doctors visit and serious illness are linked to work stress, most times instead of visiting the Hospital for a proper check up, most people just prefer to buy drugs from a roadside drug seller or we buy drugs from the chemist in our neighborhood not minding the fact that they are not trained.

My advice, according to psychologists, that we adopt some coping mechanisms like make the most of our break, even if it’s 10 minutes of our busy schedule and this have proven to help refresh our mental outlook, try to take a brief walk or just interact with colleagues and always walk away when you are angry (mental regroup) or my favorite, sit quietly with your eyes closed and take a deep breath.

We should also set reasonable standards, learn to work together with colleagues to achieve needed change in the organisation, also the overall productivity of the organisation will increase and this will improve our health as well.

Next time you are feeling stressed, take time to listen to your body, just rest and save yourself extra stress of hospital runs, a Philosopher said “To go slow is to go fast. I think that applies to everything in Life. We live as though there aren’t enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with less stress.”