A Home Run for Nigeria Budget Monitoring Project
After two years of intense financial journalism training and series of grassroots advocacy activities supported by the European Union and DFID, The Nigeria Budget Monitoring Project has gone on a very long vacation. This is however not without leaving its foot print on the media development and civil society coalition landscape.
The following power points capture the score card of the Nigeria Budget Monitoring Project.
- A financial journalism training programme.
- Supported by European Commission &DFID
- Empower Nigerians to influence, monitor public spending – federal, state, local govt.
- Equip the Nigerian media to provide their audiences with better information on public finances.
- Began in 2006 in the six EU Six focal States – Anambra, Cross River, Osun, Kano, Jigawa, Yobe plus Abuja and Lagos.
TWO STRANDS, ONE PROJECT
- Training of journalists and political cartoonists by the BBC World Service Trust.
- Grassroots advocacy activities managed by our partner organisation – Integrity
- Support citizens, use improved media budget analysis to mobilise public opinion around areas of concern – corruption, inefficiency, neglect, inappropriate spending.
ACHIEVEMENTS
- TRAINED MEDIA PRACTITIONERS
-
- 230 Reporters
- 65 Editors
- 13 Political Cartoonists
- 13 Graphic Artists
- 400 anti corruption and political Cartoons
- 185 public finance and anti corruption stories
- 17 Financial Spotlight
- Cartoon exhibition in collaboration with the British Council
- 256 direct beneficiaries in 91 media organisations have improved their skills.
- Upsurge of demand for accountability, service delivery by the people
- Government censorship – state media
CHALLENGES
- Self censorship is entrenched in the private and state media
- Lack of access to information
- Poor I.T capacity
- Poor remuneration of media practitioners
- Brown envelope syndrome
- Discrepancies between project and actual expenditure
- Corruption
LESSONS LEARNT
- Genuine desire to entrench good governance and accountability by Nigerians
- Nigerians are eager to know how government spends its money
- Want to be part of the process
- Want to monitor the process
- Journalists eager to monitor public expenditure
- It is more effective working with Independent media than government media
- Censorship very prevalent
- Access to information difficult still
- Genuine desire to entrench good governance and accountability by Nigerians
- Eager to know how government spends its money
LOOKING AHEAD
- Continue to encourage bottom-up CSO activities to give the people a voice (Integrity Clubs)
- Continue to train media practitioners on public finance issues
- Master class training for media owners on the role of the media/ public expectation
- Engage staff of relevant government agencies
- Continue to encourage bottom-up CSO activities to give the people a voice (Integrity Clubs)
- Continue to train media practitioners on public finance issues
- Master class training for media owners on the role of the media/ public expectation
- Engage staff of relevant government agencies
INTEGRITY CLUBS
Integrity built a coalition of civil society organizations known as Integrity Club in five of the six EU focal states. This was designed to support citizens to mobilize public opinion around specific areas of concern.
ACHIEVEMENTS
- Anambra State – Integrity Club successfully lobbied the state government to earmark the sum of fifty million naira for the provision of portable water in Achina
- Kano State – Integrity Club investigating the disbursement of the Universal Basic Education fund
- Cross River – Integrity Club is tracking the World Bank and ADB water project
- Osun State – Integrity Club is pursuing the honey comb road project in which the state government deducted from the local government statutory allocation.
- Yobe State – Integrity is tracking the Exim Bank loan for the construction of a hospital without the execution of the project.
LOOKING AHEAD
- Integrity Organisation has set up list serve, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nigeria-corruption/ for the Integrity Clubs.
- The forum will be used to keep the dialogue going between IC and the Media on Budget Monitoring and anti-corruption in general
- Integrity is re-launching its SCRUTINY newsletter which will carry activities of the Club to a wide audience across Nigeria, particularly lawmakers at state level and executive government at state and local levels
- The Integrity Clubs will be encouraged to continue to identify projects in their areas and INTEGRITY will source funding for the better ideas that come up.
- For sustainability in the future, once this arrangement is up and running and club members appear happy to participate, INTEGRITY will seek to have a National conference for the Integrity Club at which issues like very modest membership dues should be raised in order to ensure that the running of a secretariat in each state is possible and that at state and national levels, the clubs can elect their leadership and be less dependent on Integrity.
IMPACT OF PROJECT (RESEARCH RESULT)
AUDIENCE LEVEL:
- Reports of Increased listenership judged by evident feedback and reactions to issues discussed on different trained media organisations
- Feedback on detailed and clear report in the paper (New Nigeria)
- Greater expectations of the media to cover local budgetary issues
- Greater expectations of good governance.
PRACTITIONER LEVEL:
- Trainees felt that training had made them think differently about their careers and role in budgetary issues. Some trainees had been given:
- Increased responsibility (from reporter to sub editor) which was attributed to the training.
- More assignments even outside specialization
- Increased curiosity and interest in budgetary issues
- Increased awareness and access to budget related information
- Trainees felt that training had made them think differently about their careers and role in budgetary issues. Some trainees had been given:
- Increased responsibility (from reporter to sub editor) which was attributed to the training.
ORGANISATIONAL LEVEL:
- Trainees felt that training had made them think differently about their careers and role in budgetary issues. Some trainees had been given:
- Increased responsibility (from reporter to sub editor) which was attributed to the training.
- More assignments even outside specialization.
- Increased curiosity and interest in budgetary issues.
SYSTEM LEVEL
- Increased access to information although minimal.
- Evidence of transparency with information.
- Increased responsiveness to the media.
- Increased tolerance of criticism and investigative reporting.
Date: 09/10/08
|