１．Daily Sun （ナイジェリア）
A new onslaught against corruption
By OUR REPORTER
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Out of the concern that the dividends of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are not getting to the masses, a new initiative, Coalitions for Change (C4C), has reeled out its plans of action to counter this deplorable situation. During the briefing at the Tribune house, recently in Lagos, the Chairperson of C4C’s Programme Advisory panel (PAP), Professor Bolanle Awe, listed the focal areas of the new initiative to include, in the first instance.
Corruption *Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) * Virtual Poverty Fund (VPF) * The Northern Nigeria Water Governance Initiative (NNWGI) and * Constitution Reform Dialogue Mechanism (CRDM).
Under corruption, Prof. Awe explained that it is one of the major focal points of C4C because it is a cankerworm that has permeated and destroyed every valuable fabric of the society. She stressed that corruption must be tackled because it is a whildfire that is ravaging the country: “It is deeply rooted, even up to the level of children in elementary school who believe they should be given hints of examination questions before they can pass very well. Unfortunately, the parents who should put the children on the right path encourage them to be fraudulent because they buy results for them! Those in leadership positions are not honest and responsible to their people.
“When we talk about the Omoluabi syndrome which entails that one should be upright, responsible and trustworthy, in all things, they look at you as if you are speaking the language of another planet.” All these, she pointed out, make it imperative that for any meaningful progress to take place in the country, corruption must first be eliminated. She added: “progress in the war against corruption is key for the successful implementation of economic and political reforms.”
To record meaningful impact in this regard, C4C will work with civil society organizations, government and diverse interest groups to help minimize opportunities for grand corruption in Nigeria – especially in the area of procurement. C4C will partner with initiatives such as “Fix Nigeria,” “National Anti-Corruption Coalition,” “National Anti-Corruption Volunteer Corps,” “National Integrity Outreach” and the “Integrity First Initiative” to achieve improved government’s responsiveness to the needs of ordinary citizens in respect of public spending and budgetary outcomes.
Focus will be on the process of adoption of an anti-corruption clause, engendering ownership by government and the design of a whistle blower arrangement.
Secondly, the NEITI becomes a major area of focus because, according to C4C, despite the fact that Nigeria is one of the first few countries to sign the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the ordinary people are yet to benefit from the gains of improved revenue generation engendered by the comprehensive audits brought about in the oil, gas and other sectors of the economy.
The NEITI was launched in Nigeria in 2004 and there has been considerable increase in transparency relating to oil and gas revenue in recent years, while there is an upward trend in the participation of civil society organizations in the NEITI process.
However, to consolidate these gains and ensure proper responsiveness to the needs of ordinary citizens, the C4C, according to the PAP chairperson, “will work with partners to foster greater debate between stakeholders relating t the flow and accounting of extractive industry revenues. C4C will focus on the revenue alongside accountability and work on strengthening civil society’s capacity to understand these technical processes. By this, we will be able to measure what we generate from the country’s mineral resources – including gold, iron ore, and so on and the common people would know where to get what and how to get the technology to possess and process the resources.”
The third area of operation for C4C is the Virtual Poverty Fund whose gains the initiative would ensure gets to the masses. According to a C4C pamphlet: “During the 2003 – 2007 administration, the Nigerian government was successful in getting 60% of its national debt forgiven by the Paris club. These substantial savings of about $1 billion (about 140 billion naira) were invested in a Virtual Poverty Fund (VPF).
“C4C will work with civil society organizations, government and relevant interest groups to ensure accountability, transparent and effective use of the VPF money, as a strategy for enabling the government to achieve the Millennium Development goals (MDGs).
The programme will focus on monitoring the spending of the Debt Relief gains across three sectors – education, health and water, and make recommendations to bridge the gaps in project processes, selection, design, location and implementation, to ensure good management of public resources, and stronger formal accountability. C4C is working in partnership with the Centre for Democracy and Development (DD), Action Aid, the Justice Development and Peace Commission (JDPC), Ijebu Ode, and Concerned professionals to achieve these goals.”
To foretall the normal practice whereby beneficiaries of funds do not account for money collected, Prof. Awe said there would be effective monitoring and supervision, while non-accountable beneficiaries would not be given a chance. The fourth focal point, the Northern Nigeria Water Governance Initiative, is to ensure community resources are managed more equitably and sustainably by institutions. The Hadejia-Jama’ are-Komadugu-Yobe Basin (HJKYB) is a major river basin in north eastern Nigeria feeding Lake Chad. This major wetland spans six northern states, including Kano, Jigawa, Plateau, Bauchi, Yobe and Borno. There are about 15 million people living in this area and a number of development projects are working on integrated water resources management to improve the livelihoods of these people.
C4C, according to the chairperson, will work with diverse stakeholders across the region to help address the basin’s natural resources management issues through practical pilot demonstrations, policy reforms, and budget allocations in support of an integrated water resources management (IWRM) approach.
Lastly, the C4C is tackling CRDM to facilitate the involvement of all relevant stakeholders in the constitutional reform process.
In this case, burning national issues like the Niger-Delta agitations, for instance, could be considered, to strike a chord of equity and true federalism in the country.
The C4C, realizing that since 1999, there have been several attempts at amending Nigeria’s constitution, while the core issue remains how best to bring all voices together to agree on the best strategy to adopt “will identify key voices and national processes towards the actualization of a consultative mechanism for structured dialogue on constitutional reform.”
The C4C (Coalitions for Change), which is an initiative of the United States Department for International Development (DFID), overall, will look at what ways change could be brought about through improving the capacity of the people, by getting people more informed, looking at the weaknesses in the five focal points and creating ways of rectifying or improving those weaknesses for the benefit of the teeming masses of Nigeria.
Southern Africa: No takers for funds for water projects
By Moses Magadza
WINDHOEK — Nearly US$9 million of donor aid intended to support transboundary water management projects in southern Africa was diverted elsewhere after governments in the region failed to submit proposals for funding.
Experts in the water sector acknowledge that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) faces many challenges with regards to water. These include deteriorating quality and quantity of water and related problems of poor sanitation and access to safe drinking water and a lack of human and institutional capacity to manage water resources.
As it strives to implement an Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) strategy, there is a wide consensus that the IWRM is the best way to spur development but the lack of clarity and a regionally acceptable blueprint on how the strategy can be implemented have hampered progress.
Zimbabwean scientist Dr Percy Chimwamurombe, who has worked on a number of environmental projects in southern Africa, says SADC governments need to strengthen their technical departments.
“SADC has a comprehensive regional development strategy. Member states must familiarise themselves with that strategy and figure out how they can come up with projects that would complement those development efforts,” he says.
Dr Chimwamurombe says SADC governments need to strengthen their technical departments. Indeed the failure of regional governments to apply for funds that could have strengthened these departments is puzzling.
“This was money available at very short notice and only available for a short period,” says Dr Horst Michael Vogel, programme coordinator with GTZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit), the German agency for sustainable development. “We were asked to identify projects for possible funding within about three months. The shocking thing for us is that (none of the SADC governments) had a project proposal, let alone a bankable one at the time.”
Vogel revealed that his organisation and other partners had conducted a survey among 15 international donors to determine which transboundary water projects they are supporting, for how long and at what cost.
He said the survey had revealed that donor support was still concentrated in major river basins like Zambezi, Orange, Limpopo and Kavango, while smaller basins get very little support. Dr Vogel said when the money was raised in late 2007 and calls were made for project proposals, there were promises but no action from the region's government-related river basin authorities.
Among the greatest challenges faced in transboundary water management in the region is the absence of a body that spearheads a Southern Africa-wide strategy for managing water. It is hoped that the Zambezi Watercourse Commission mooted in 2004, and finally expected to begin operations in 2009, will play this role and be the driver of the IWRM strategy.
“In the end that money was sent somewhere else,” says Dr Vogel. “This happens all the time. Proposals are never readily available when they are needed. Often we have had to help with feasibility studies, which the governments should do on their own.”
Dr Vogel could not say if similar money was available to other regions in Africa or whether there was better response elsewhere.
But he has a piece of advice for Southern African governments. He cautions that coming up with projects that will appeal to donors cannot be done at the drop of a hat, and suggests that governments start salting away bankable projects in case donors emerge without notice, as they often do.
Dr Chimwamurombe said there are many information gaps — for example, basic data on how pollution is affecting water supplies — in the water sector in SADC and that should inspire good projects. He said SADC had many shared aquifers which can spur development and reduce poverty if properly exploited.
“Someone can do a study on the likely impacts of using these resources on the environment, for instance,” he said.
However, while accepting that lack of capacity could partly explain the poor response to calls for projects for funding by donors, a senior water planning officer from Tanzania demurred, saying sometimes donors attach unacceptable conditions to their aid, which put off some governments.
“There was a time when a donor wanted Tanzania to privatise water management before aid could be released. There were heated exchanges and we told the donors to keep their money,” the expert said on condition he was not named citing organisational bureaucracy.
Dr Vogel would not put it past some donors to attach impossible conditions but stressed that all donors are not cut from the same cloth.
“We (GTZ) don’t attach any conditions beyond the requirement that projects submitted for funding fall within agreed development plans between SADC and other stakeholders. SADC is so advanced that donors can only buy into that development plan,” he said.
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