STRENGTHENING THE INTEGRATION OF GLOBAL INNOVATION EDUCATION AND DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE PROJECT 2015 Many traditional, political, business, and religious leaders are aware of the negotiations and compromises that enable this plural nation to cohere and advance in some areas. This conviction, though strained, is not fully eroded. The current National Conference has enabled Nigerians from all sectors of society to spend months in argumentative debate on key issues. In such contexts, Nigerians can tap into what they have in common. Many venues for cross-communal consultation must be encouraged with the aim of reviving the Nigerian Project of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, socially just and democratic polity. At another level, however, few will doubt that for all the progress which has been made in promoting the idea of the centrality of gender to the robustness of any social research and the completeness of any project of social transformation, a considerable amount of work still remains to be done. The challenges that are posed are many but in summary could be said to centre around the need to consolidate the many critiques of development that have been made from various gender – and feminist perspectives into a comprehensive, internally coherent and consistent set of alternatives on the basis of which further advances in theory, method and praxis could be achieved. Engendering African development requires close attention not only to the analytical tools of the researcher but also a gendered critique of development that questions the very foundations on which the African developmental process rests and the terms on which it has proceeded as a pre-requisite for new theoretical approaches and policy instruments. In sum, what is called for today is a complete paradigm shift for which new scholarship will be necessary. Looking at the Africa of the 1980s and 1990s, there is a lot to be regretted by the failure of dominant discussions on development to tackle the roots of the inability of scholars and practitioners to break out of the (self-imposed) prison represented by the theoretical and institutional boxes from which they work. For, as the state went into decline, market failures proliferated, violent conflicts burst out or acquired a new lease of life, new local and international diasporas were born, the boundaries of the informal economy expanded, the HIV/AIDS and Ebola? pandemic took its toll, and the economy of care grew further in significance, the role of women in the well-being of the household and society became ever more significant. Without doubt, the continued reproduction of economy and society in Africa depended on the tenacity and ingenuity of women. In this changed context, the nature of the gender relationship became ever more central to the prospects for development whether viewed from the vantage point of the production process (including labour markets), the state-citizen relationship, the negotiation of the market and market relations, efforts at reinventing the state, and innovations in the arts, culture and technology. These developments added up to create a radically different context for gender relations that must, of necessity, be taken into account in a holistic re-thinking of development in Africa. The agenda of social transformation in the development process has remained a live one which is in need of being creatively re-visited at a time when questions are cumulating on the limits of the market and the costs of the maladjustment of African economies and societies. The questions which are being raised have been accompanied by a revival of academic and policy interest in development and the role which the state could play in it. In this connection, the notion of the developmental state has been revived and is rapidly regaining currency. Among the most enlightened exponents of the renewed developmental state thesis as a path for Africa both to overcome its prolonged socio-economic crises and transcend the maladjustments brought about by the IMF/World Bank market fundamentalism of the 1980s and 1990s, a fundamentalism that may be less confident than before but which has not yet been decisively defeated, their primary concern has been to avoid the errors that hobbled the efforts that were made in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s to foster development and promote a developmental state project. These errors are primarily seen as being located in the arena of politics as captured by the deficit of democracy. It is on account of these deficits that the renewed discussion on the importance of the revival of a developmental state project has placed an accent on the need to ensure that this time, Africa strives to build democratic developmental states. Different authors have identified different entry points for the democratic import of the developmental state project they have in mind but these differences need not detain us for now. What is really important is that it is inconceivable that the democratic developmental state, however defined, can be built without a clear integration of gender in the equation. And it is precisely here that the silences have been loudest and, where gendered voices have been noted, it has been more for their feebleness than for their bold staking of a claim. The need to correct this early enough is clear: It will ensure that the struggle to more effectively engender development in Africa will avoid the historical errors of the past, namely, seeking merely to add gender garnishing to a meal that has already been cooked ready to serve. Nigeria, despite its economic and military might, has usually acted as a “benign hegemon” in west and equatorial Africa. Yet its capacity to influence regional affairs has diminished. The threat posed by jihadist extremists is also regional in nature. France is consolidating its military operations in Mali, Niger, and Chad. The United States is steadily expanding its security engagement across the “band of insecurity” from the northwest to northeast of the continent. Northern Nigeria is becoming the vortex of these terrorist and counter-terrorist operations. In the midst of these currents, it must again be a leader in regional affairs which requires presidential vision and leadership. Brainstorm Associates Research Teams for the past four years had promoted and enhanced citizen participation, community management and governance, service delivery, local economic development, and institution strengthening in Nigeria and Global Research Education and Resources Management Project 2013/Leadership in Community Development Project 2014 also helped create sustainable municipal governments and supported organizations that were able to plan, implement, and sustain infrastructure and service projects, and promoted economic growth, while effectively including women and indigenous communities in the governance process. Therefore making all voices count is a global initiative with innovative research learning that supports innovative thinking, scaling, and research that deepens both existing and new innovations that enable better citizen engagement and government responsiveness. This Grand Challenge focuses global attention on creative and cutting-edge solutions, including those that use mobile, web and other technologies, to ensure the voices of all citizens are heard and that governments have the capacity, as well as the incentive, to listen and respond. The aim of Global Innovation Education and Democratic Governance Project 2015 is a substantial push towards effective democratic governance and accountability. The project of Brainstorm Leadership Academy, Nigeria will tackles a different governance and accountability problem each year, and makes use of public votes to identify and score entries. A peer review process is used to scrutinise the most promising entries, and the applicants that make it to the final are invited to attend the Global Innovation Week in Nigeria as Brainstorm Graduates Centre aims to raise awareness of global issues and encourage action toward social change. We will organise events, deliver training, produce publications and provide a wide range of resources to target groups in the formal and non-formal education sectors. We welcome more partners that will give an idea of the scale involved, since the population of this region is roughly equal to that of Egypt at 80 million. As a country, it would tie for third largest in the continent after the rest of Nigeria and Ethiopia. The extent of this problem is usually elided by statistics that show Nigeria to be the largest economy in Africa and growing by 7-8% per annum. Disaggregated, the picture looks different. The economy of northern Nigeria has stagnated, with a disproportionately high rate of population growth, deplorable education and health facilities, and abysmal employment opportunities for its youthful population. If Boko Haram did not emerge from this wide distress, other extremist groups would have done so. Banditry, cattle-rustling, and other woes reflect the growing insecurities of economic and social life. A comprehensive growth and development plan, linked to the proposed Global Coalition, is an international priority. Brainstorm Associates Research Professional Council Partners Grants are awarded to student applicants with particularly innovative ideas or proven concepts. The applicant must prove they will implement the idea/proven concept in Global Innovation Education and Democratic Governance Project 2015 country. The Global Innovation Education and Democratic Governance Project 2015 countries are U.S, England, Scotland, China, Japan, Bangladesh, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. Consequently, one of the paradoxes of Nigeria is how a nation which produces so many highly intelligent and resourceful individuals can have made such a shambles of its natural resources. In many areas, the most enterprising Nigerians emigrate and usually pursue successful careers in their host countries. There is a wave of younger Nigerians, especially in business, returning to build new enterprises. However, the talent and financial assets that remain abroad are extensive. Asian countries have viewed the overseas training of their citizens, and their deployment at home at attractive wages, as crucial to their growth and development. This is a pathway available to Nigeria which has not been pursued with the requisite commitment. Good governance, including in advanced democracies, require robust systems of horizontal and vertical accountability. For Americans, the prosecution of governors, bankers, legislators, and others for financial abuses is as regular a feature of their political system as elections. The largest constitutional democracy in the world, India, has struggled to overcome pervasive graft and corruption. Nigeria has not experienced the same degree of popular upheavals against corruption as India, or the innovations Indians have devised to compel transparency and accountability. In government, business, religious groups, and civic organizations, there are many Nigerians who can endow their country with vigorous institutions of accountability and transparency. With the support of external partners, existing structures can be strengthened and expanded and appropriate ones created. The U.S Government had provide 51 million dollars (about N8.4 billion) to support credible elections in Nigeria in 2015 and other electoral process in the country in the next five years. Anyone is welcome to apply for Partners Grants with the next project of Brainstorm Associates Research Professional Council : i.e., companies, government actors, non-profits, for-profits, education establishments, NGOs or individuals. Applicants from last year’s GIC are also eligible to reapply. Applicants can apply with as many ideas/proven concepts as they wish, however only one application per entity will qualify for the second round, and that will be the application with the most votes. The U.S government also announced that it had launched “Making All Voices Count”, a programme aimed at supporting innovation and research that would empower citizens in some countries to engage with government. “The project is being executed in partnership with other governments and private foundations”. The first round of grants on the programme, totaling 2.5 million dollars had been announced and would benefit African countries, including Nigeria, South Africa, Liberia and Ghana. Hereto, one of the great virtues of Nigerians is their extraordinary entrepreneurship. Since the 1980s, numerous avenues have been opened in Nigeria, as elsewhere in Africa, to entrepreneurship. Many individuals still pursue business careers based on procuring contracts from local, state, and federal agencies. However, alongside them enterprises, from small to large–scale operations, are being built with a focus on the country’s expanding consumer markets. Today, one can encounter Nigerian business-persons as astute and effective as those in any fast-developing country. Nigeria can develop globally competitive corporate sectors comparable to those of Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and some Indian states. It must still solve, however, the problem of making its modernizing economy truly transformative in generating employment and productive capacity. Moreover, Nigeria’s political economy is characterized by discordant development as reflected in the high national poverty levels, and the even graver sub-regional discrepancies. The country’s business communities have a major role to play in making private enterprise a driver in the acquisition of individual wealth accompanied by shared prosperity. The constitution drafters in Nigeria, 1976-78, opted for a presidential system. Individuals, who emerge to occupy this powerful position, and the abundant financial resources it commands, do so via a fractious political process that is little based on experience and capacity. Yet, there is no absolute rule about which personal traits and backgrounds will yield audacious and inspiring leaders. Surprises abound, such as the American presidencies of former small-town lawyer Abraham Lincoln and former small-town haberdasher, Harry Truman. The Nigerian Fourth Republic has had three presidents. Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007) was its most experienced and capable albeit flawed leader. Umaru Yar’Adua (2007-2010) was weak politically and physically and made nary an impact. Goodluck Jonathan (2010 to the present) remains a paradox. He showed great skill and courage in overcoming intense opposition to his bid to succeed an ailing Yar’Adua. He has deployed the resources of the presidency to maintain support in the nation and among the institutions of government. Obviously, if Nigeria is to emerge from its deepening predicament and pursue pathways to stability, security, and democratic development, it needs if not a Lincoln then at least a Truman. Can Goodluck Jonathan bridge this leadership gap or will someone else do so? Given Nigeria’s highly presidential system of government, it is imperative that this question be affirmatively answered. As one lesson for the upcoming peer-review process in the Leadership in Community Development Project 2014 and what Global Innovation Education and Democratic Governance Project 2015 is striking the right balance between brevity, ease and depth of peer analysis. The jury will also review applications and will assign wildcards to projects that seem promising, but are not yet at the stage of being presented. The aim of this is to support and encourage innovation, particularly from people who may not be experienced in competing in this way. Brainstorm Associates Projects and Research Learning Programs will continue to work in three primary areas: FIRST: Gender Equity a. Reviewed program materials for clarity, sensitivity, and appropriateness, with special consideration for gender equity. b. Redefined African Participatory Political Management Model to integrate gender and developed a model for enhancing womens participation in the annual planning process – specifically in the definition of municipal investment based on principles of gender equity. c. Designed and provided training-of-trainers support to program participants in methods and techniques for incorporating gender considerations into training programs. d. Coordinated project activities that will integrate Womens Issues and national level organizations to improve the legal framework supporting gender equity, i.e. assistance in the preparation of the draft law against Political Harassment and Violence (as to be approved by the Senate in the next Fall and sent to Constitutional Commission). e. Trained women civil society organizations in project design and developing economic activities for women. f. Conducted workshops in support of womens legal rights through the Strengthening of Integrated Legal Services in project municipalities. SECOND: Projects and Service Delivery i. Designed a manual for municipalities for the use of System Control for Public Lighting Management that introduced general urban planning techniques and provided an easy-to-use tool for decision-making within an overall framework of transparent municipal management. ii. Increased capacity of municipalities to provide basic public services either directly or through single entities to provide public services . Several municipalities opened public service units to coordinate and articulate basic public service provision. iii. Gained citizen support for adjusting the water fee structure to be based on the real costs for operation, maintenance, and expansion. Brainstorm Leadership Academy, Nigeria Innovation Research and Development Education Reports Index has highlights some specific accomplishment includes institutionalization of capacity to increase own source revenues in rural communities with components of; 1. Promoting Credible, Transparent and Sustainable Electoral Processes which seeks to promote sustainable electoral processes through engaging Electoral Commission to improve institutional capacity; strategic planning and operational competency; staff professional development; voter registration; strategic engagement with electoral stakeholders to promote political party reform; legal reform involving the legislature; civic education; election monitoring and observation; and gender mainstreaming in the electoral process. The project also supports the capacity of the State Government to promote credible local elections through strengthening the normative frameworks for the management of elections by peer-learning and enhanced cooperation between organization and government agencies. 2. Improving the Democratic Quality of Political Engagement has efforts to improve the democratic functioning of political parties, professionalizing their administration, strengthening inter-party dialogue and enabling political parties to effectively engage with the electoral and democratic processes activities in this component are geared towards developing the capacity of the parties to engage constructively in electoral and democratic processes. This will be achieved by delivering two outputs, namely: (1) Capacity of political parties strengthened, and (2) improved effectiveness of targeted National Assembly Committees/Processes. 3. Enhancing Participation by Women, Youth and other Marginalized Political Groups: Brainstorm Associates seeks to support ongoing legal reform to promote affirmative action and women’s empowerment and political participation through supporting political parties to strengthen internal processes geared to advancing the role of women within the party structures; training women to organize and mobilize public support for their election to public office; and supporting elected women to become effective role models and drivers of change to promote affirmative action and address gender gaps especially in the National Assembly 4. Strengthening the Channels of Civic Engagement: Brainstorm Associates supports CSOs and media efforts to champion governance reforms, confront corruption, advocate respect for human rights, and promote and defend democratic processes and institutions through improving institutional capacities of CSOs to develop and engage in a wide range of deepening democratic governance initiatives, including advocating for electoral reforms, disseminating information on and monitoring government performance in addition to supporting civic education and election observation. Hereto, the challenges of infrastructure development in third world countries are many. The demand surpasses the supply and finance that will stimulate rapid provision is not there. Due to wide gap between provision and needs, the leadership classes are in arrears in all sectors. The political situation is not encouraging to foreign investors. Governments do not set the priority right in infrastructure development. Projects are suppose to meet objectives, but in most cases, projects embarked upon are white elephant projects. Good governance will be the only antidote that can bridge the wide gap. Secondly, good governance promotes accountability, reduces corruption and therefore minimises resource wastage through inefficiency. And finally, good governance ensures stability (economic and political) and reduces the level of risk associated with large and lumpy infrastructure investments. This in turn facilitates the mobilisation of both public and private sector financing resources that are critical for infrastructure development. The country has a big land mass that makes it possible to spread out. Connecting the people of Nigeria with roads, National Grid and potable water will be tasking. High cost of materials for infrastructure development is also a challenge. The local content of production of goods and services must be increased to reduce production cost. Corruption level in Nigeria is too high and allows incompetent hands to handle contracts. Professionals are not allowed to handle projects due to corruption. The cost of governance and recurrent expenditure are so high leaving little for capital expenditure. The high level of unemployment is a dis-incentive to market and to capital development and it would be inappropriate to measure the success of development assistance to first-time legislative elections in current-day we are using recent voter participation rates as a benchmark. One way out of this dilemma is to tailor indicators to appropriate levels of political development, that is, according to whether a country tends towards an authoritarian regime, is in a transition period towards democracy, or has an established and functioning democracy. This exercise would require that relevant characteristics be assigned to each level of political development. Yet, many of the initial difficulties still remain. The western liberal democratic system is assumed to be the end stage of political development, against which the desirable characteristics of each level of political development are measured. And indicators based on this scheme would continue to ignore home grown varieties of democracy that exist throughout the developing world. Brainstorm Associates believes participant would also benefit from considering that cultures share many common ethical standards (i.e. the respect for life, the principle of reciprocity, etc.) and that there exist signed international treaties and instruments against which human rights and democratic development results could legitimately be measured since political development involves complex human and institutional processes that a few indicators will not be able to capture. The problem is compounded by the small size of donor human rights and democratic development programmes relative to the magnitude of political change in any given country: it would be almost impossible, for example, to measure the extent to which strengthening civil society institutions affects a countrys overall democratic environment. The goal setting principle with this project is to understand and assess socio-political change not only through the eyes of donors and programme managers, but by including the perspectives of all stakeholders, especially the programme beneficiaries. Local knowledge and creativity is greatly valued. Hence, rather than programme managers unilaterally extracting and categorizing information, all programme stakeholders are empowered to engage in dialogue, mutual understanding, and group learning, sharing and results monitoring. Some of the main techniques used are participatory evaluations (including participant self-evaluations), political group discussions/workshops, focus groups conferences and seminars/summits, recording beneficiary oral histories, and participatory mapping (communities trace socio-economic maps of their villages). Thus, strengthening the integration of global innovation education and democratic governance project 2015 will establish and track human rights and democratic development implementation targets. The work of the consultative team will assist in establishing performance benchmarks, which would need to be revised over time in the light of new experience. These benchmarks would involve: (a) Tracking the overall funding and/or number of human rights and democratic development projects/programmes; (b) Comparing overall support for human rights and democratic development to support provided to other Agency priority areas; (c) Track distribution of overall human rights and democratic development support: between Branches; among priorities within Agency human rights and democratic development priorities (i.e. % of support to elections versus NGO capacity development); by type of Nigerian/developing country executing agency. (d) tracking how much human rights and democratic development-related research is being carried out/commissioned within the Agency and assess how effective/relevant it is to the realization of human rights and democratic development objectives; and (e) Track the number of staff who have received training (in human rights and democratic development, in participatory development, etc.). Of course, tracking human rights and democratic development implementation and effectiveness at the corporate level will help in strengthening programming at the project/programme level and vice versa. The intra-Agency consultative team will be a crucial conduit in this process. SOURCE: Brainstorm Graduates Centre.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 13:45:17 +0000
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