Good governance, democracy and accountability remains hampered by the low levels of citizen participation, inadequate civic education, and limited levels of awareness. To raise the competence of citizens to practically demand for accountability from the elected leaders the sample proposal on good governance and democracy is specifically aimed to increasing the capacities of for civil society and representative of local government to fulfill their roles and responsibilities in a democratic system more effectively. The project also seeks to establish an Inter-state forum for exchanging best practices in promoting democratic accountability at local level and enhancing cooperation between civil society actors and elected leaders.
Project Proposal Information
Project Summary
Nigeria is one of the top oils producing nations in the world. Despite the huge amount from oil revenue the country remains poor. Corruption and bad governance are widespread that make the people still live below poverty line. In Rivers and AkwaIbom states genuine democracy, good governance and accountability remains hampered by low levels of citizen participation, inadequate civic education, and limited levels of awareness. The project is specifically aimed at increasing the capacities of for civil society and chairman of local government to fulfill their roles and responsibilities in a democratic system more effectively. The project also seeks to establish an Inter-state Forum for exchanging best practices in promoting democratic accountability at local level and enhancing cooperation between civil society actors and elected leaders.
Project Location: Nigeria
Project Beneficiary: CSO & Community of Practice
Project Theme and Initiative:
Project Theme: Strengthening Civil Society Interaction with Government
Previous initiatives: Previous Initiatives in this theme
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- The Previous Initiatives -Strengthening Citizens Engagement on Electoral Processes (SCEEP)
- Mobilization and citizens’ engagement with the election processes.
- Women, youth and persons living with disability participating and influencing electoral politics.
- Target Audiences report increases in knowledge of democratic process, the political candidates and their policies.
- Media Practitioners are better trained and more confident in producing responsible political journalism and programs
Lessons Learned and Innovation:
Lessons Learned and Innovation –Organization learnt the following
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- Exclusiveness of Women and persons living with disabilities in political offices either elective or appointive positions.
- Electorates incomplete engagement on the election circle
- mobilized citizen’s to engagement on election processes by organizing capacity building on Electoral Laws, budget analysis and tracking training, Voter Education are good avenue to ensure transparency in governance as elected officials know laws guiding their duty.
- Facilitate the development and production of community chartered for 18 pilot communities in 6 LGAs as a tool for engagement with office holders.
- Create awareness through community bases sensitization programs, development/distribution of IEC materials on voter’s right, door to door
- campaign on registration and obtaining of Permanent Voters Card for citizenry is an avenue to ensure citizens elect credible leaders to political office
Project Proposal Description
(Describe the overall democratic context, development issues and challenges pertaining to the topic addressed by this project. Max. 500)
Democratic Context
Currently, there is low Civic education in South-South Nigeria, to raise the competence of citizens to practically demand for accountability from the elected leaders. There are Weak formal platforms through which the citizens and their leaders can interface and engage each other on matters of good governance and political accountability, limited participation of Special Interest Groups such as the women, the Youth, People with Disabilities, and other minorities in the democratic governance
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- Indicate the problem addressed by the project (2) Describe the underlying causes of this problem and (3) provide a justification for the necessity of the project. Max. 1500 characters.
Problem analysis:
Issues on governance are based on transparency, participation, accountability and equity. It is clear that there is still inadequate information flowing from government to the people of the community and the uses to which they are put. As such the level of transparency and accountability in the governance of Rivers and AkwaIbom state are very low and subject to speculation. This leads to constant misgiving among communities that they are not getting a fair treatment from government at all levels.
The government is not meeting the developmental needs of communities, the local citizens are not involved in decision making process, and the elected leaders are not paying adequate attention to underprivileged groups and protecting the environment.
The level of participation of communities/ local citizens in decisions making are quite low. The elected leader and local actors are not involving community in allocating resources, choosing projects locations, receiving regular reports on projects and monitoring the progress of projects.
As a result of limited consultation and participation by communities, there is a general sense that the public cannot restraint leaders to control the resources of the community and the state
Furthermore there is general low level of accountability among the elected leaders.
The project therefore seek to ensure participation of the community in local governance and decision making process
Project Objectives
(Clearly explain the objective that will be achieved through implementation of the project activities. Max. 255 characters)
To strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations to serve as trainers to the local citizens on civic education for the promotion of democracy and good governance in Rivers and AkwaIbom States.
Outcomes, Indicators, Outputs and Key Activities
Grassroots Community Development
The project is specifically aimed at increasing the capacities of for civil society and chairman of local government to fulfil their roles and responsibilities in a democratic system more effectively. The project also seeks to establish an Inter-state Forum for exchanging best practices in promoting democratic accountability at local level and enhancing cooperation between civil society actors and elected leaders.
Currently, there is low Civic education in South-South Nigeria, to raise the competence of citizens to practically demand for accountability from Democratic Context the elected leaders. There are Weak formal platforms through which the citizens and their leaders can interface and engage each other on matters of good governance and political accountability, limited participation of Special Interest Groups such as the women, the Youth, People with Disabilities, and other minorities in the democratic governance.
Issues on governance are based on transparency, participation, accountability and equity. It is clear that there is still inadequate information flowing from government to the people of the community and the uses to which they are put. As such the level of transparency and accountability in the governance of Rivers and AkwaIbom state are very low and subject to speculation. This leads to constant misgiving among communities that they are not getting a fair treatment from government at all levels.
The government is not meeting the developmental needs of communities, the local citizens are not involved in decision making process, and the Problem Analysis selected leaders are not paying adequate attention to underprivileged groups and protecting the environment.
The level of participation of communities/ local citizens in decisions making are quite low. The elected leader and local actors are not involving community in allocating resources, choosing projects locations, receiving regular reports on projects and monitoring the progress of projects. As a result of limited consultation and participation by communities, there is a general sense that the public cannot restraint leaders to control the resources of the community and the state.
Furthermore, there is general low level of accountability among the elected leaders.
The project therefore seeks to ensure participation of the community in local governance and decision-making process.
Expected Results and Key Deliverables
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- Enhanced the capacity of civil society actors to promote democratic governance and accountability at local government level and to conduct grassroots civic education.
- Enhanced the capacity of the local government chairman on their roles and responsibilities to the citizenry and ensuring good governance at local level for sustained democracy.
- Formation of inter-state forum to exchanging best practices in promoting democrat.
Monitoring and Evaluation
The mechanism for monitoring the specific activities shall be:
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- Implementing NGO shall develop and submit quarterly reports on project progress, problems, challenges, strategy for its implementation and level of Monitoring and Evaluation community participation
- Develop overall framework for project monitoring and evaluation: for example, periodic project review, participatory impact assessment (with the local citizens, CSO actors and other stakeholders), process monitoring, operations monitoring and lessons learned works.
Sustainability
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- The objectives of this project will be sustained through the continuous organization of information seminars and training workshops on issues related to democracy and democratic governance. The government, through the National Human Right Commission, will provide administrative and logistic support to back up project objectives.
- The capacity building for the CSOs actors as trained trainers shall help to sustain the project. The CSOs shall train the local citizens in all the project action Gender Considerations Gender considerations are taken into account in the project design.
Explain The project put gender consideration through the project. The selection of the chairmen shall be gender based as women who are chairperson shall be involved in the project. The selection of CSOs shall be gender based as both women and men led CSOs shall be selected equally.
Marginalized or Vulnerable Groups
The needs of marginalized or vulnerable groups are taken into account in the project design.
Explain: Marginalized groups are taken into account in this project. People with disabilities shall be involved during the tripartite partnership between local government, CSOs and Local citizens on good governance, equity and inclusiveness of the local citizens in democratic process. They shall also be part of civic education training for the local citizen. Their involvement in the project shall ensure their voice is heard on issue concerning them.
