DEAN LEADS ‘EP GIRLS INITIATIVE’ IN ADVANCING GIRL CHILD EDUCATION.

With the UN putting the action for SDGs 5 (Gender Equality) to the forefront, DEAN is investigating core life skills women worldwide have acquired which are lagging in countries such as Nigeria and building scalable activities capable of creating needed changes. 

With the evolvement of the education system, there is a need to adapt to the shifting skills needed to fuel the narrative to empower the fate of girls to know that they are not less endowed in potential. Equal Potential – Girls (EP-girls), incorporates real-life skills, political education, and self-esteem management for girls in an informal setting, through extracurricular school exercises in Nigerian schools.

According to UNESCO, around the world, 132 million girls are out of school, including 34.3 million of primary school age, 30 million of lower-secondary school age, and 67.4 million of upper-secondary school age. In countries affected by conflict, girls are more than twice as likely to be out of school than girls living in non-affected countries. And in many countries, among girls who do enter primary school, only a small portion will reach and far fewer will complete secondary school.

Every girl has the right to quality education. Girls’ education goes beyond getting girls into school. It is also about ensuring that girls learn and while at it, they feel safe too; have the opportunity to complete all levels of education acquiring the requisite knowledge and skills to strive in this present time; learn the socio-emotional and life skills necessary to navigate and adapt to a changing world; make decisions about their own lives; and contribute to their communities and the world. Consequently, DEAN’s Education for Girls Team in partnership with our volunteer communities worked in 800 rural communities across the 6 Area Councils in FCT, 20 communities across 8 LGAs in Katsina and 330 communities across the 33 LGAs in Oyo state to get first-hand information on the impact of covid-19 on girls’ education in the communities through advocacies, FGD/community engagements, radio talk shows and jingles as well as social media engagements with about 2,058,916 reach.

EP GIRLS initiative in advancing girl child education served as an eye-opener to community members, parents, and guardians alike on how much impact the covid-19 has on a girl child’s education, future health, and well-being both short and long term, how their continued stay at home could also be an avenue for other vices to affect the girl child. Hence, religious leaders, community heads as well as parents made commitments to support their girls and encourage others to ensure that every girl child is empowered and that learning never ends for the girl child. As a result of the EP Girls Initiative, we got feedback school administrators and community leaders in the states where we carried out this project that a reasonable number of girls have returned to school due to our campaign. It was reported that about 500 girls in Abuja and 55 girls in Katsina State and 200 girls in Oyo state have received support from their families and communities to return to school.

DEAN INITIATIVE TRAINS TEN STAFF OF ABAJI AREA COUNCIL ON BUDGET LITERACY AND CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT.

DEAN INITIATIVE TRAINS TEN STAFF OF ABAJI AREA COUNCIL ON BUDGET LITERACY AND CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT.

The #OpenLGAs Accountability Project of DEAN Initiative which is a budget monetary to continue it advocacy around open governance at the local government level, by training Ten staffs of Abaji area council. This staffs are picked from the Finance/Budget, Revenue and Administration department in the Area Council. It has continue to be a concern that as much as there has been a pressure on the Federal Government and the State Government to be more open in their financial dealings the Area Councils has been left unchecked, while the Area Council who we all know are the closest to the people also having the power to translate development to the grass roots in the fastest way receives federal allocations monthly and also generate huge revenue on daily basis, they also carry some constitutional responsibilities in delivering the dividends of democracy and governance benefits unfortunately this has not been seen to be so in Nigeria due to the secrecy with which they operate their activities.

In Pursuit of Local Government Autonomy in Nigeria for LGAs' Transparency

The increasing demand for human capacity advancement of the Area Council to align with the international best practices, makes it our concern as an organization-DEAN Initiative to conduct an approved free In-House training for selected 10 staffs, nominated by the Abaji Area Council, FCT-Abuja.

#OpenLGAs Townhall Meeting

In taken the business of accountability and transparency in governance to the grassroot, especially the Local Government Areas(the supposed closest government to the people), the #OpenLGAs Townhall of the activecitizen.com.ng held in Bwari Area Council of FCT on the 25th Nov. 2017 within the premises of the Bwari Shoping Plaza; the Townhall meeting was hosted by Youth Ablaze in partnership with DEAN Initiative.

The eyes openner Townhall meeting had citizens from every section and groups within the Area Council. Participants lamented the recklessness with which Council administrators are governing. No participants at the Townhall meeting was able point to or identify any project the Council have initiated or done in one calendar year, neither could did anyone of them has idea of what the Council receives monthly in allocation or what it generates in IGR. Over 80% of the participants quoted correctly the Federal budget for 2017 and the newly presented 2018 budget. About 40% also gave account of Federal IGR sources and amounts declared by the Federal government.

Sadly, no participant at the Townhall meeting had idea what the Area Council’s budget; not even once since they have been in Bwari. None as well have knowledge of how much in IGR the Council generates and what is done with such income. The group represented at the meeting includes among others; members of the Bwari Technology village, Builders association, association of shop owners, commercial motocyclists, religious leaders, school owners, indigeneous youth, student body, market women, traders, civil servants and traditional rulers.

The citizens decried the force with which the Area Council uses in collecting the IGR and the more painful thing is that while citizens hustle to pay their multiple taxes, the Area Council on her side has failed to deliver the smallest possible services. What happens to these monies? That the question #OpenLGAs Project is out to unravel.
Commercial drivers claimed they are subjected to daily payment of several revenues to the tune of N700. School owners and churches pay N18,000 for Busses while businesses pays for; signposts, sales, shop space and others.

Bwari Area Council parades 10 Quary plants and other major businesses, despite all revenues and monthly allocations, Bwari AC citizens can’t feel the impact of governance at the local level. Citizens seems to hence have lost faith in government due to continuous service delivery failure. The closeness of LGAs to the people is at the moment not yielding its designed impact. The reasons for this can be said to be very clear; while a lot of donor funding and voluntary activities are invested in monitoring the Federal government activities and projects, the LGAs are deemed almost not important to monitor and they over the years have beeing making over night millionaires through endemic corupt practices.

The LGA Chairmen have their monthly allocations and IGR all to themselves to decide what to do with.

The representative of Bwari traditional ruler the townhall meeting attributed the trend to systemic corruption. He said they themselves are even more confused as they seem not to understand how government run or who to hold accountable. Each time they meet the LGA Chairman, he complains of lack of fund release by the Minister and the Minister will complain that he has no release from the Federal government. But the little they receive and make in IGR, he said are never accounted for.

The citizens at the meeting unanimously agreed to responsibility for their silence over time. The conveyner of the Townhall meeting; Youth Ablaze and the activecitizen.com.ng emphasized the OpenLGAs ideology and the importance of citizens’ participation in monitoring government activities. The citizens there and then consituted working groups to contact the leadership of the Area Council to demand relavant information using the FOI and follow up with due actions.

You can forward your contribution and questions around the #OpenLGAs Project to deaninitiativeatgmail.com

Youth and SDGs in Nigeria

The meeting started at about 2:38pm with a brief introduction of the delegation Miss Rose, the Personal Assistant to the SSAP SDGs. This was followed by a welcome remark by the Secretary of Programs to OSSAP_SDGs, Mr Waziri Laminu after which each organization introduced themselves. 

The Curator, Global Shapers on behalf of the youth delegation thanked the SOP for giving audience and went ahead to state that the coalition of youths was put in place in order to ensure full participation of the youths in the SDGs. Following this, the speaker of National Youth Parliament asked the Chairman to kindly inform the delegation on what the youths needed to do and how they could come in and also requested that representatives of the Youth should be considered in the planned Presidential committee on SDGs. 

  

Mrs. Olaopa, a.k.a Mama youth who is the head of Youth programs answered the questions by stating that the youths could partner with the SDG Champions, a platform created in conjunction with the office of the NYSC to enable serving corps members go to the 774 local government areas and enlighten them about the SDGs.

Secondly, she encouraged the coalition to be a part of the newly constituted Private Sector Advisory in order to give their own input. She also talked about a new concept being formed named ‘Academia’ but didn’t speak much on it.

Thirdly, she stated that the OSSAP SDG worked hand in hand with certain agencies and encouraged the delegation to partner with the Ministry of Youths and Sports. 

Furthermore, she encouraged the delegation to get involved and inform the office once they had achieved any of the goals.

The chairman wrapped up by stating that unlike in the time of the MDGs, they had developed a different strategy which was better and involved certain agencies while working in hand with the National Bureau of Statistics and National Office of Planning. He encouraged the delegation to get back to them with a proposal after the sallah break and promised to use his good office to meet their requests. He also promised to discuss with the SSAP to see the possibility of including youth in the Presidential committee. Miss Rose concluded by stating by way of reiteration that the coalition of youths was a good step towards the right direction and she looked forward to what they could achieve together.

The vote of thanks was given by Miss Stacy from Susty Vibes and the meeting was brought to a close. Pictures were taken afterwards.

Demographic Dividend and Youth Development Policy

Attending a two day National Pre_Summit Training on Investing in Youth to Harness the Demographic Dividend IN Nigeria.

I raised a strong voice on the Review of the National Youth Policy. With officials from the Federal and States Ministry Of Youth and Sport Development duly on seat, it was a good time to engage them on few questions;

1. Who and who are responsible for the review process of the Youth Policy?
2. What time duration should the review process take?
3. What process should the review exercise be taking?
4. How often should the review exercise be done.
5. What are the tracking indicators to monitor the policy implementation?
6. Who should be held responsible for non performance of the policy?

As usual, we had a lot of inconsistency in the responses.

What are your suggestions?

Nigeria’s 2017 budget of recovery and growth

Nigeria’s 2017 budget of recovery and growth

Protocols:

1. It is my pleasure to present the 2017 Budget Proposals to this distinguished Joint Assembly: the Budget of Recovery and Growth.