We work with diverse partners to build the service delivery and engagement capacities of governments, civil society organizations, and communities.
Network of CAPABLE Home-grown Organizations Driving Social and Economic Change.
Back in 2011, stakeholder consultations showed the weak capacity of Niger Delta-based organizations was a major concern as development within the region would be impossible without their engagement and assistance. In response, we launched the Capacity Building for Local Empowerment (CAPABLE) initiative in 2013 to boost the institutional and technical capacities of local civil society and business membership organizations so they could increase their competitive advantage to accessing funds and improve the quality of service delivery to communities.
During the past year, CAPABLE trained 254 people (including 98 female) from 46 organizations. Training delivered were in the areas of Monitoring and Evaluation, Resource Mobilization and Fundraising, Group Dynamics and Leadership, and Business Development for Service Providers. . Also conducted was the Making Markets Work for the Poor (M4P) training which was in collaboration between PIND and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) Market Development (MADE) project. This Partnership with DFID MADE also included a Training of Trainers session for 10 M4P professionals (including 6 women) and helped to increase the number of Markets Systems Development professionals serving as resource persons for training and post training support from 11 in 2016 to 21.
The CAPABLE M4P course is gradually building a critical mass of local organizations that are skilled in applying the sustainable market systems approach to development interventions where there was previously none. Eight (8) of these organizations (headed by women) received funding to implement interventions in Niger Delta communities using the ‘making market work for the poor’ (M4P) approach.
This year was quite remarkable for CAPABLE, as we complemented training by mentoring and coaching to help organizations to fully apply skills from the trainings. We boosted the ability of trained institutions to deliver improved services to communities by providing them with small grants to procure more robust information, communication and technology (ICT) tools, which improved their work efficiency and productivity. The Community of Practice initiated by CAPABLE course graduates, blossomed into an interactive platform for CSOs to share information, experiences, programmatic achievements, and to develop partnerships to secure additional resources.
We also extended our CAPABLE training to the riverine communities by collaborating with the Participatory Partnership for Community Development (PPCD) coalition that manages the Chevron Nigeria Limited’s Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMOU) process to deliver a tailored training on Group Dynamics and Leadership for the riverine KEFFES and Dodo River Regional Development Committees (RDCs) in Bayelsa State and Egbema Gbaramatu Development Foundation in Delta State. This helped to strengthen and enhance the effectiveness of these community-level institutions in implementing Chevron Nigeria Limited’s GMOU in riverine communities in the Niger Delta.
Our CAPABLE training, coaching and mentoring had 44 benefitting civil society and business membership organizations (BMOs) providing improved social and economic services to their constituencies across the region in 2017, bringing the cumulative total from 2010 to 75. 11 of these 75 organizations are headed by women. 22 of these organizations created and applied 187 new organizational policies and procedures that are improving their organizational effectiveness. A cumulative number of 241 policies and procedures have been established since 2010.
Promoting Collective Policy Impacts through Our Issue-Based Alliances of Civil Society and Business Membership Organizations
A strong civil society can influence the pace of democratic reforms. But we know that working in isolated advocacy silos constrains their ability to do this effectively, irrespective of having individual institutional and technical competencies.
Addressing these constraints require Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to have the ability to forge alliances, be sector leaders and promote collective impacts through strong ecosystem level engagements that involve mobilizing public opinion in support of reform agendas. So in 2014, we partnered with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to roll out the Strengthening Advocacy and Civil Engagement (SACE) project to support increased engagement and effectiveness of civil society to influence public institutions whose function it is to serve citizens’ interests. The project explicitly aims to engage marginalized populations such as women, youth, and the disabled.
Through SACE, we adopted the ‘Anchor/Cluster’ ecosystem development approach that clusters organizations with similar interests to work together around common advocacy agenda and strategies in order to create collective impacts. Clusters are led by anchor CSOs who coordinate and align the activities of cluster members around common advocacy issues, build effective relationship with them and promote networking among the organizations to opportunities and to resources.
SACE set up 10 advocacy clusters in the Niger Delta led by 10 Niger-Delta based CSO and BMO anchors and provided support to them to come together to develop common policy reform agendas, coordinate strategies, monitor results and share knowledge. In 2017, 91 organizations from the Niger Delta received financial assistance and capacity building from the project to improve democratic governance and advocacy both within the region and nationally through the advocacy clusters. 14 of these focused on issues of marginalized constituencies.
The SACE-supported advocacy clusters of civil and business organizations held 44 public awareness campaigns on key inclusive economic reform and equitable growth democratic governance issues, bringing the total from 2014 till date to 70. These produced positive actions from better-informed citizens with increasing cognizance of their rights and confidence from the disseminated good governance messages as evidenced by a growing willingness of State Governments to comply with demands of the civil society.
Two separate mid-term evaluation of SACE in 2017 showed Niger Delta Civil Society Organizations and Business Membership Organizations made remarkable contributions to a more transparent and accountable governance in the region by strategic engagement with policy-makers, Niger Delta Institutions and the public. Evaluation showed the SACE project triggered open budgets, completion of hitherto abandoned projects, and inclusive growth through statutory allocations to marginalized groups and sectors.
Some SACE 2017 policy outcomes:
- Through participation in the Ondo State Medium Term Sector Strategy (MTSS) deliberations, the Inclusive Agriculture Cluster anchored by Life and Peace Development Organization (LAPDO) influenced provision of a new line item tagged ‘Agro Women Initiative’ for women smallholders’ farmers in the Ondo State 2018 agricultural sector budget for the first time, with an initial sum of N2 million allocated to the initiative.
- Advocacy efforts by the Inclusive Economic Growth Cluster anchored by the Edo State Co-Operative Farmers Agency (ESCFAL) led to the set-up of a committee to work with them to develop an inclusive agricultural policy for Edo State.
- The Social Inclusion for Youth Cluster anchored by Youth Alive Foundation got the Youth Empowerment bill to pass the first and second reading at the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly.
- The Akwa Ibom State Government published its 2017 budget online for the first time following engagements by the Open Budget Cluster anchored by Social Development Integrity Centre (SDIC).
Our Capacity Building program has built a growing and sustainable eco-system of local capacity in the Niger Delta that has been transformed into forces for social and economic change by improving institutional capabilities to deliver social services and engage in public decision-making, local governance and economic development project management.
DOWNLOAD REPORT HERE PIND 2017 Annual Report (3709 downloads )
