SDGs: Group dedicates UN award to young Nigerians

A Nigerian civil society organisation, Connected Development (CODE), has dedicated a United Nations award it won over its budget tracking initiative; #FollowTheMoney, to young Nigerians.

Speaking during the launch of 2018 edition of its annual report, Monday in Abuja, Chief Executive Officer of CODE, Mr. Hamzat Lawal said the award (SDGs Mobilizer Of The Year 2019), which was in honour of the organisation’s pursuit of achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in Nigeria will spur them to doing much more. 

He said: “today, we a happy that a home-grown initiative is gaining a global recognition. We are dedicating this award to the young people in Nigeria. Young Nigerians should take its ownership”, adding that CODE would continue to make the right and needed information accessible to mostly rural Nigerians for purposes of holding their governments accountable.

On the 2018 report which was tagged ‘Amplifying Voices from the Grassroots’, Lawal said “Grassroots communities in Nigeria are constantly deprived of access to basic human needs like health care, water, education, despite the fact that billions of naira are appropriated for the provision of health facilities, teaching aid, water and clean energy infrastructure in these regions. Most times, these funds do not reach the communities.

“Disturbed by this anomaly, Connected Development (CODE) is providing marginalised communities in Africa with the resources to amplify their voices by creating platforms for dialogue, enabling informed debate, and building the capacity of citizens on how to hold their elected representatives accountable through our social accountability initiative, Follow The Money”.

He stated that during the year under review; “Our priority, in 2018, was to track subnational budgets and ensure that Federal allocations to States and Local Governments reached grassroots communities for socio-economic development. CODE tracked an estimate of NGN 1,289,579,737 (USD 3.6 million) budgeted for projects in  69 grassroots communities across water, sanitation and hygiene [WASH], primary healthcare and education sectors.

According to him, CODE activated the tracking initiative for nine local government projects and 41 state government projects championing five advocacy campaigns for improved first-mile health infrastructure and services, 60 advocacy campaigns for improved education infrastructures for children to learn in schools, and 6 advocacy campaigns for communities to access safe clean water, which impacted 1,292,848 grassroots people in 21 States of Nigeria, among other reported achievements.

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