From Femi Mustapha, in Kaduna
Participants at a one Day Stakeholders Assessment of 4th Monitoring Round (4MR) have urged Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to focus on good governance that will be open, inclusive, accountable, transparent and beneficial to the citizens.
According to them, CSOs are important development actors that contribute to policy development through dialogue and advocacy.
The participants therefore called on CSOs to maintain their roles as leaders in the promotion and protection of human rights and democratization.
A participant, Mohammed B Attah, opined that Nigerians appreciate CSOs for their experience, expertise, quick and flexible responses that are beneficial to the citizens.
“They are also valued for their ability to identify new, as well as long standing and often systemic obstacles to social, economic and democratic development and for their capacity to innovate, elaborate and implement solutions.
“We however caution CSOs not to become tools in the hands of greedy politicians to the detriment of the citizens.”
In his presentation on Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) and Monitoring Round (4MR), the Programme Officer of African Networks for Environmental and Social Justice (ANEEJ), Paul Odokara said that it is the primary multi-stakeholder platform for driving the effectiveness of all types of development cooperation to deliver sustainable development.
According to him, The Global Partnership monitoring is a partner country-led exercise to promote collective accountability on the effectiveness of development cooperation.
Guided by the four internationally agreed principles for effective development cooperation, the monitoring tracks the progress of partner countries, development partners and other actors in implementing their agreed commitments to more effective development cooperation.
The monitoring exercise, they said, drives behaviour change by focusing on how stakeholders partner at the country level for better development results.
In his welcome address, the Acting Executive Director of ANEEJ, Mr Leo Atakpu stressed that the meeting was a follow up on to the training conducted by the CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness (CPDE) in Dec. 2023 on CSO engagement in the 4th monitoring Round in Brussels, Belgium.
Mr Atakpu said that ANEEJ represented Nigeria at the training as the CSO Focal Point in Nigeria.
“It is given that ANEEJ received support from CPDE to engage stakeholders in the national level monitoring process and submit a report focusing on the assessment of the 4MR themes namely; Whole of Society, State and Use of Country Systems, Transparency and Leave No One Behind (LNOB).
“As critical stakeholders, you have been invited to this event to contribute your expertise in enriching the report which will be fed into the Global Partnership Synthesis Report.
” Our task this morning is therefore very important as it will help us generate evidence and data on the compliance of Effectiveness Principles Commitments by our government and other stakeholders.
“While civil societies need to hold the government accountable on these commitments, Civil Societies, Development Partners, Private Sector and Trade Unions must also hold themselves accountable in the implementation of their commitments.
“The 4MR Monitoring therefore emphasizes Mutual Accountability and Transparency.
“We wish to thank the CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness (CPDE) for the support to hold this event today, ” he said.
