By Modupe Gbadeyanka
A non-profit organisation, PROMAD Foundation, has taken a significant step to deepen accountability and participation in governance in Nasarawa State through a project called Strengthening Participation, Accountability and Transparency in States Capital Project (SPATS).
This initiative, which aims to track projects carried out by the state government through FollowTheProjects, was launched under the group’s social accountability and service delivery scheme.
The project is supported by the WYDE Civic Engagement Project by the Kofi Annan Foundation (KAF), the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD), the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), and the Oslo Centre, with funding from the European Union (EU)
SPATS intends to foster civic participation and empower young people with social accountability skills to demand participatory and accountable governance within the state.
It was designed to improve project and procurement transparency and accountability by strengthening citizens’ oversight of subnational institutions implementing public projects in Nigeria with Nasarawa State as a pilot.
Through these efforts and advocacies with state agencies, PROMAD will create an atmosphere that encourages the voices of the citizens to be heard and their needs to be addressed by the government.
“We designed the project to prioritise capacity-building for young people as well as grassroots community stakeholders to perform oversights, report findings and engage to improve the delivery of states’ capital projects.
“During the project, a social accountability fellowship will be held to empower 13 young men and women, including persons with disabilities (PWDs) from the 13 local government areas in Nasarawa State.
“PROMAD will also conduct a human-centred design engagement for the opportunity to learn from the youth, local stakeholders and the government to complement the building of our social accountability platform for FollowTheProjects and the redesign of our www.grap.org.ng platform for community needs assessment to influence participatory budgeting in the subnational level,” a statement from the foundation said.