A recap of New Testament Women organisation’s advocacy in Akwa Ibom communities
A non-governmental organisation, together with the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDF) and the Women United for Economic Empowerment (WUEE), has issued a comprehensive report of its exploits in some communities in Akwa Ibom State.
The NGO, New Testament Women Organisation, offers wide-ranging services covering healthcare, education, civic rights, gender-related matters among other areas.
In its latest report made available to reporters, the organisation said the project which took place in Ikot Abasi Local Government Area focused on the areas of civic engagement, effective advocacy, tracking and monitoring of budget processes, gender and involvement of excluded groups in governance processes.
The benefiting communities are: Ikot Akpaidang, Ikot Usop, Okon, Ikot Okpok and Ikot Etefia/Atanikpe.
The programme tagged Civic Education on Strengthening Democracy Processes at Local Level in Nigeria, started on August 25, 2020 and lasted for four months.
It was revealed that “a random questionnaire was administered verbally to participants before the commencement of the project.”
On civic engagement, “it was discovered that 80% of citizens in attendance had gotten their voters cards, 12% were unable to collect due to time constraints, relocation and lack of knowledge on transferring of voters cards and uncontrolled circumstances like death of love ones. 8% refused getting their voters cards.”
“2% of participants heard about the Local Government Budget and State level budgeting processes. 5% of participants had sometimes engaged with their duty bearers for the development of their communities,” the NGO also revealed.
The civic education training was conducted by each of the 20 CSOs and delivered to 1,000 citizens per CSOs.
The audience mostly complained that the democratic process is flawed. They decried that imposition of candidates has become a norm in the political sphere.
The NGO further reports that “the three phases of electoral processes were used to facilitate the session, starting from the pre elections, election day proper and post-election and its respective activities, linking it to how the community members can effectively engage the processes to increase the level of participation in electoral processes in their localities. The youths were also encouraged to shun violence during election in order for there to be increased in level of participation during the electoral processes.
“It was emphasized that it is the right of every citizen who is of age to vote and be voted for
Effective Advocacy: the aim of this topic was to equip the participants with the knowledge and skills needed for effective advocacy and engagement of duty bearers. The facilitator explained that effective advocacy is the process of influencing public policy, laws and budgets by using facts, their relationships, the media, and messaging to educate government officials and the public on the changes that need to be made regarding a specific issue.
In order to effectively advocate, participants were taught to: build relationship, strengthen relationships, engage the media, create a strong constituency at the grassroots, understand that as an advocate you are a middle man, mobilize sector around issues, know the facts, have clear and concise message and plan to be organized.”
On tracking and monitoring of budget processes, the session enlightened the audience on budget conception and preparation, budget approval, budget implementation, budget monitoring and auditing.
Participants were urged to formulate a backlog of demands and engage budget offices from 2021 for capturing of their community needs in the Local Government budget for 2022.
On Gender and involvement of Excluded Groups in Governance Processes, the NGO posited that the topic was necessary due to the high level of exclusion of women and PLWDs in governance processes.
The discourse dissected the structural relationships of inequality between men and women as manifested in labour market and in political, religious structures as well as in the household and family. “These roles can limit a person greatly resulting in discriminatory practices,” the NGO lamented.
In their report, the organization divulged that “participants were able to identify cultural and religious practices that hinders women and PLWDs from effectively participating in electoral processes and it was agreed that such barriers will be mitigated for there to be a level playing ground for all community members to participate in electoral processes from the grassroots to the state and federal level irrespective of their sex nor level of disability.”
Major takeaways from the programme include: increased knowledge of participants on budget tracking and monitoring processes, strengthened/ formation of community development working committee, increased knowledge of participants on civic education, effective advocacy, gender mainstreaming and budget tracking.
Community groups were formed and strengthened for effective engagement of democratic processes in targeted communities in Ikot Abasi LGA.
The community sensitization was extensively a success as community members who participated had increased knowledge on the topics discussed. Total number of 1001 community members participated in the activity.
In attendance were community Chief and members of Council of Chiefs, Women Leaders, Youth Leaders and Town Criers.
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