By: Mayowa Adeniran –
A United States-based non-profit-making organisation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has listed areas it has intervened in Nigeria.
Nigeria’s Deputy Director of the foundation, Oladayo Olaide, said the organisation has made interventions in areas such as education, health, election, public service and many others.
Of all areas, lack of accountability, which he referred to as Nigeria’s biggest problem is the most challenging, he noted.
He made these remarks at the recently held Regulators Monitoring Programme, REMOP, training organised by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, WSCIJ, in Lagos.
He traced the foundation’s presence in Nigeria to 1994 when it first made intervention to curb maternal mortality which was rampant at that time.
“When the Foundation came into Nigeria in the 90s the biggest issue which was our main attraction was the number of women who died while giving birth. These women were dying while trying to give life. So the Foundation was for 25 years supporting intervention to improve maternal mortality. We worked with various stakeholders, governments, civil society groups, research and international organizations.
“This was to mobilize, sensitize and find easy new ways of stopping avoidable deaths of pregnant women and to reduce a lot of deaths that were caused by pregnancy related factors. In addition to that, the Foundation also has a footprint in supporting human rights against governments (National Human Rights for example), civil societies in Nigeria and we have also supported a number of international organizations as well in our efforts to improve respect for human rights in Nigeria.”
Mr. Olaide said the foundation has also supported Nigeria in areas of girl education, tertiary institution researches, elections and accountability in the public sector.
He noted that lack of accountability is the biggest problem plaguing Nigeria’s public service.
“The Foundation also supported a lot of work to improve elections. Until 2015, we were one of the pioneer supporters of the media, the Independent Electoral Commission, and the civil society. Two years ago, there was a change in the Foundation’s administration and the new president asked that if the Foundation were to be established in the country today, what are the main issues?
“After a lot of consultations with governments and civil society organisations and the media, I think there was a consensus that the lack of accountability was the biggest issue confronting the nation. Many argued that the crisis we find expressing itself as insecurity in the country is partly as a result of unaccountability in the country. Resources were allocated to fight Boko Haram and many of the funds actually ended up in private pockets.
“The broken down public services that we complain about; whether it is in education, health sector, construction, transport, they are all from unaccountability. Budgets allocated a lot of the times are 40-45 percent below average and a lot of the funds also end up in private pockets.
“The Foundation over the past two and a half years has begun to work with Nigeria and Nigerians to put accountability at the height of the conversation. Our initial step into that new project is a five million dollar fund set up in collaboration with the Open Society and the Ford Foundation which is supporting the Presidential Advisory Committee work against corruption.
“That also enables us to be able to support the office of the Ministry of Justice which is coordinating the work of Open Government Partnership. But we are also supporting civil society groups through that fund and we have been able to set up funds to support the Nigeria extractive industries. We are in talks with national Orientation Agency to mobilize them in the work of anti-corruption.”
Mr Olaide also stated the foundation’s effort at improving investigative journalism in Nigeria.
“Other efforts of the foundation are to improve investigative journalism and investigative capacity in the country. The interest in investigative journalism and corruption lies in the fact that for Nigerians to be a part of the effort to improve accountability in the country, they need to know, based on credible objective research for investigation that are being produced by the media. So the Foundation is currently supporting about eight media organizations. Wole Soyinka Center for Investigative Journalism is certainly one of them, Cable Network, Sahara Reporters and others as well.”
He added that the foundation is also working with CSOs to curb corruption in Nigeria.
“The Foundation supports the core of civil society groups whose responsibilities is to keep issues of corruption at the front burner of national discuss so that an investigation that is done by Premium Times for example, does not fly off our radar within one week and there are so many other cold cases that civil societies have upheld or put right before us.
“There are several other things that the Foundation is doing and I think newest is the work we are trying to start with Nollywood and the faith-based organizations. This is based on the notion that a lot of the current effort to tackle corruption is based on the question of how we use the law.
“Correction to societal problems require mobilizing the general populace to be a part of that. So how do we change mindset? How do we change behavioural patterns? People must speak out against corruption.
“We are also working with a number of entertainment players to begin infusing messages around corruption into our programmes. You have likely seen ‘supported by McArthur Foundation’ on Jenifa’s Diary. The message is: don’t take away the entertainment but while it is on, try and publicize the message against corruption,” he said.
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