STRENGTHENING ADVOCACY AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT Semi Annual Report FY 2016, October 2015 to March 2016 Quarterly Report Q2 FY2016 – January 1, 2016, to March 31, 2016
Submission Date: April 29, 2016
Contract Number: AID-620-C-14-00001 Project Start Date and End Date: January 2, 2014, to January 1, 2019 COR: Augusta Akparanta-Emenogu
Submitted by: Charles Abani, Chief of Party Chemonics International Inc. 1717 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20006 Tel: +1.202.955.3300 Email: [email protected]
This document was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development Nigeria (USAID/Nigeria).
July 2008 1
Table of Contents
ACRONYMS ...... 3
ProJECT Overview/Summary ...... 5 Project Description/Introduction ...... 5
1. Progress Summary ...... 7
2. Semi-Annual ACTIVITY IMPLEMENTATION PROGRESS ...... 12
Progress Summary by Component ...... 13 Component 1: Capacity Building ...... 13 Component II: Policy and Key Stakeholder Engagement ...... 14 Component III: Public Awareness ...... 14 Component IV: Niger Delta ...... 15 INTEGRATION OF CROSS CUTTING ISSUES ...... 16 STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATION AND INVOLVEMENT ...... 18 MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES ...... 19 LESSONS LEARNED AND IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES ...... 21 PLANNED ACTIVITIES FOR Q3 AND Q4, FY2016 ...... 21 WHAT DOES USAID NOT KNOW THAT IT NEEDS TO KNOW ...... 22
2. QUARTER activity progress report...... 22 2.1 Quarterly Progress Summary ...... 22 2.2 Quarterly Progress Narrative ...... 27 2.2.1 Component 1: Capacity Building ...... 27 2.2.2 Component 2: Policy and Key Stakeholder Engagement ...... 33 2.2.3 Component 3: Public Awareness ...... 38 2.2.4 Component 4: Niger Delta ...... 47 ANALYSIS OF SACE TRAINING PROGRAMS IN Q2 2016 – NIGER DELTA ...... 49 2.3 Monitoring and Evaluation ...... 50
3. INTEGRATION OF CROSSCUTTING ISSUES ...... 51 3.1 Gender Equality and Female Empowerment ...... 51 3.2 Enabling Environment ...... 52 3.3 Youth Development ...... 53 3.4 Sustainability Mechanisms ...... 54 3.5 Policy and Governance Support ...... 54
3.6 Local Capacity Development ...... 55 3.7 Conflict Mitigation ...... 55
4. STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATION AND INVOLVEMENT ...... 55
5. MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES ...... 56 5.1 Grants and Strategic Activities Fund (SAF) Administration ...... 56 5.2 Communications ...... 57 5.3 Human Resources ...... 58 5.4 Security ...... 58 5.5 Finance ...... 59
6. LESSONs LEARNED and implementation challenges ...... 60
7. PLANNED ACTIVITIES FOR Q3 FY 2016 ...... 61
8. What does USAID not know that it needs to? ...... 62
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ACRONYMS
ALS Annual Learning Summit ANEEJ Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice BMO Business Membership Organization CENSOJ Centre for Social Justice COR Contracting Officer’s Representative CISLAC Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre CITAD Centre for Information Technology and Development CRC Citizens Report Card CSO Civil Society Organization CCIDESOR Citizens Centre for Integrated Development and Social Rights DQA Data Quality Assessment DRAC Disability Rights Advocacy Centre EiE Enough is Enough ESCFAL Edo State Farmers’ Cooperative Agency Limited GESI Gender Equity and Social Inclusion GON Government of Nigeria HDI Human Development Initiatives HERFON Health Reform Foundation of Nigeria IR Intermediate Result ISWF Innovation and Spread the Word Fund IED Improvised Explosive Devices JONAPWD Joint National Association of Persons with Disability LOC Local Organizing Committee LITE-Africa The Leadership Initiative for Transformation and Empowerment M&E Monitoring and Evaluation MEMS Monitoring and Evaluation Management Services project MIS Management Information System MNCH Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health NCDF Nembe City Development Foundation NDDC Niger Delta Development Commission NDI Niger Delta Institutions NUT Nigerian Union of Teachers PIND Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta PLAC Policy and Legal Advocacy Center PMP Performance Management Plan PMU Project Management Unit PWD People with Disabilities SACE Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement SDIC Social Development Integrated Center SMW Social Media Week SRH Sexual Reproductive Health STAR System for Transformation and Results STTA Short Term Technical Assistance UBE Universal Basic Education UFPPA Ugboroke Progressive Fish Farmers Association USAID United States Agency for International Development
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USG United States Government WARDC Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre WOFAN Women Farmers Association of Nigeria WRAPA Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative YAF Youth Alive Foundation
4 STRENGTHENING ADVOCACY AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT - QUARTERLY PROGRESS REPORT (Q2 FY2016)
PROJECT OVERVIEW/SUMMARY
Project Name: Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement
Activity Start Date And End January 2, 2014 – January 1, 2019 Date: Name of Prime Implementing Chemonics International Inc. Partner: Contract Number: AID-620-C-14-00001 Name of Subcontractors: Root Change Major Counterpart N/A Organizations Geographic Coverage Nigeria (cities and or countries) October, 1 2015 to March, 31 2016 (semi-annual reporting) Reporting Period: January, 1 2016 to March, 31 2016 (quarterly reporting)
Project Description/Introduction
The Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement (SACE) program is a $19.2 million USAID- funded project implemented by Chemonics International between January 2, 2014, and January 1, 2019. Its objective is to strengthen civil society’s ability to influence the development and implementation of key democratic reforms at the national, state, and local levels. The program supports increased engagement and efficacy of civil society to influence public institutions whose function it is to serve citizens’ interests. The program explicitly engages marginalized populations; such as women, youth, and the disabled; in the process and emphasizes the importance of leadership and innovation.
The program has four components:
1. Strengthened institutional, organizational, and technical capacity of targeted civil society organizations’ (CSO) coalitions and networks to advance targeted democracy and good governance initiatives.
2. Strengthened partnership (engagement) between CSO-led coalitions and networks and targeted Government of Nigeria (GON) institutions and key stakeholders to advocate for and monitor select democratic reforms aimed at strengthening transparency, accountability, and responsiveness of government institutions.
3. Strengthened public awareness, discourse, and support for key democratic governance issues such as transparency, accountability, and good governance.
4. Strengthened capacity of partner business membership organizations (BMOs) and CSOs in the Niger Delta to advocate for inclusive economic reforms and equitable economic growth.
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The Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND) is a strategic partner to USAID in the Niger Delta. The program coordinates with and complements PIND’s activities in the region under Component Four.
SACE supports the USAID Forward Initiative and its goal of increasing the number of procurements made directly with local organizations. In line with this goal and concurrent to improving civic participation in governance, the program will build the capacity of at least six select Nigerian organizations – with one of the six focusing on women’s participation in decision-making and another on the participation of people with disabilities (PWDs) – so that three are positioned to receive USAID funding after four years.
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1. PROGRESS SUMMARY
Table 1 below details the progress achieved versus planned through Q2 FY 2016. The figures are from the Performance Management Plan (PMP), as revised together with USAID in January 2016.
Table 1: Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement: Progress Report for Q2 FY 2016 (January – March 2016)
6
Annual
6 6 6 6
6
6 6 6
Performance Achieved to Indicator Comments the End of
Baseline Reporting
Q2Actual FY1 Q2Actual FY1 Q3Actual FY1 Q4Actual
Q1 Target FY1 Q1 Target FY1 Q1 Actual FY1 Q2 Target FY1 Q3 Target FY1 Q4 Target
Annual Target FY1 Target Annual Period (%) Intermediate Result 1 (IR): Strengthened Institutional, organizational, and technical capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs), coalitions and networks to play a leadership role in advancing targeted democracy and good governance initiatives. Indicator 1.1: Number of 0 56 56 Reporting on this indicator will organizations showing net occur in Q4. change. Indicator 1.2: Number of unique 0 1150 250 281 400 432 250 250 109.7% Overachievement is the result of people trained in unique successful partner and Social Media subjects. Week (SMW) Lagos activities. Indicator 1.3 (GJD 2.4.1-11): 0 110 Number of USG-funded CSOs representing marginalized constituencies. National 70 25 25 15 19 15 15 110% Niger Delta 40 10 38 10 5 10 10 215% Total 110 35 63 25 24 25 25 145% Overachievement under this indicator will not continue throughout FY2016. SACE expects to end the year on target.
7 STRENGTHENING ADVOCACY AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT - QUARTERLY PROGRESS REPORT (Q2 FY2016)
Annual
6 6 6
6
6 6 6
Performance
FY1 Achieved to Indicator Comments the End of
Actual FY1 Target
Baseline
Reporting
Q2Actual FY1 Q2Actual FY1 Q3Actual FY1 Q4Actual
Q1 Target FY16 Q1 Target Q1 Q2 FY1 Q3 Target FY1 Q4 Target
Annual Target FY16 Target Annual Period (%)
Indicator 2.1: Number of cluster 0 60 Mapping for this indicator is done members with improved semi-annually and reported on networking. during Q2 and Q4. National 42 21 45 21 214% Clusters have all grown more than expected during FY 2016. SACE anticipates overachieving this indicator for FY2016 and will set targets for FY2017 based on lessons learned. Niger Delta 18 9 0 9 0% Baseline for Niger Delta partners was conducted in Q2. The seven Niger Delta clusters who completed the STARNET identified 53 organizations and SACE anticipates meeting the annual target of 18 with improved networking. Total 60 30 45 30 150% Indicator 2.2 (GJD2.4.1-24): 0 16 As documented in SACE’s Q1 Number of policies, regulations, FY2016 report, overachievement and administrative processes in under this indicator is a result of development, passed, or being partners working on multiple implemented as a result of USG policies, regulations, and assistance. administrative processes at once. SACE expects this trend to continue and to significantly overachieve this target for FY2016. The Outcome Harvesting Framework and Policy
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Tracker will facilitate target setting for FY2017. National 6 2 2 2 5 2 0 175% States 2 1 2 0 1 0 1 300% Niger Delta 8 0 3 3 8 3 2 266% Total 16 3 7 5 14 5 3 131% Indicator 2.3 (GJD 2.4.1-9): 0 88 Reporting on this indicator will Number of CSOs receiving USG occur in Q4. assistance engaged in advocacy interventions. National 56 56 Niger Delta 32 32 Total 88 88 Indicator 2.4: Number of 0 2 partnership (engagement) innovations initiated by funded CSOs. 1 Innovation from a national partner National 1 not expected until Q4. 1 Innovation from a Niger Delta Niger Delta 1 partner not expected until Q3. Total 2 1 1
Annual
6 6 6
6
6 6 6
Performance
FY1
FY1 FY1 FY1
Achieved to Indicator Comments the End of
Actual FY1 Target FY1 Target FY1 Target
Baseline
Reporting
Q2Actual Q3Actual Q4Actual
Q1 Target FY16 Q1 Target Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Annual Target FY16 Target Annual Period (%) Intermediate Result 3 (IR): Strengthened public awareness discourse and support for key democratic issues such as transparency, accountability inclusive & good governance. Indicator 3.1: Number of public 0 9 9 Reporting on this indicator will awareness campaigns on key occur in Q4. democratic issues.
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Indicator 3.2: Number of public 0 64 Overachievement is the result of a discourse on key democratic ramped-up level of partner governance issues facilitated by engagement. SACE anticipates a CSOs and SACE. slight overachievement across FY2016 and will set targets for FY2017 based on lessons learned. National 40 10 13 10 8 10 10 105% Niger Delta 24 6 6 6 10 6 6 133% Total 64 16 19 16 18 16 16 115% Indicator 3.3: Number of media 0 200 Overachievement is the result of transactions to promote robust media engagement by transparency, accountability and partners – particularly CCIDESOR – good governance initiatives. and the success of SACE’s SMW and 2.0 Mindset Series activities National 120 60 46 20 40 20 20 107.5% Niger Delta 80 20 35 20 40 20 20 187.5% Total 200 80 81 40 80 40 40 134% Indicator 3.4: Number of public 0 2 Two SACE-funded CSOs are awareness innovations initiated expected to unveil public by funded CSOs. awareness innovations in Q3 and Q4. National 1 1 0 N. Delta 1 0 1 Total 2 1 1
Annual
6 6 6
6
6 6 6
Performance
FY1
FY1 FY1 FY1
Achieved to Indicator Comments the End of
Actual FY1 Target FY1 Target FY1 Target
Baseline
Reporting
Q2Actual Q3Actual Q4Actual
Q1 Target FY16 Q1 Target Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Annual Target FY16 Target Annual Period (%) Intermediate Result 4 (IR): Strengthened capacity of partner BMOs and CSOs in the Niger Delta to advocate for inclusive economic reforms and equitable economic growth
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Indicator 4.1: Number of 0 32 32 Reporting on this indicator will organizations showing net occur in Q4. change. Indicator 4.2: Number of unique 0 950 350 414 200 163 250 150 105% people (CSO members) trained in unique subjects. Indicator 4.3: Number of public 0 8 8 Reporting on this indicator will awareness campaigns on key occur in Q4. inclusive economic reform and equitable growth in the Niger Delta.
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2. SEMI-ANNUAL ACTIVITY IMPLEMENTATION PROGRESS
Semi-Annual Progress Summary
During the first six months of FY2016, SACE has made significant progress against key deliverables and continues to make progress towards life-of-project objectives, while gradually shifting focus towards deepening capacity, strengthening partnerships with key GON stakeholders, and promoting greater public participation in processes linked with reforms in transparency, accountability and good governance. Below we present key development highlights across all SACE components. Further details are available in the Q1 report (submitted in January 2016) and in the Q2 that follows.
Highlights for the half-year include:
Strong partner engagement with key stakeholders leads to tangible results
- Through support from SACE, the Extractives Cluster, led by the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has brought consistent pressure for reform in the oil and gas sector. This culminated in President Buhari appointing a CISLAC staff member as the civil society representative on the Nigeria Extractives Industry Initiative (NEITI) Board in February 2016. - An increasing number of abandoned capital projects have been revived and are being completed across Imo State as a result of the effective, community-level campaigning of the Citizens Centre for Integrated Development and Social Rights (CCIDESOR) over the last six months.
Rapid growth in public awareness and engagement on partner issues
- The three clusters working on women and health – led by the Health Reform Foundation of Nigeria (HERFON), the Centre for Social Justice (CENSOJ), and the Disability Rights Advocacy Centre (DRAC) – demonstrated the strength of SACE’s collective-impact approach through their 1,000 Person March, which campaigned for maternal, new born, and child (MNCH) reforms ranging from budget reform to service delivery improvements for women with disabilities in December 2015. - The Youth Empowerment Bill being proposed by the Youth Alive Foundation (YAF) and its cluster through the successful “10%4Youth” campaign received steadily increasing endorsements, especially from the Speaker of the House and members of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly and traditional rulers.
Strong growth and engagement from Niger Delta partners
- Following intensive advocacy efforts by the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), the Leadership Initiative for Transformation and Empowerment-Africa (LITE-Africa), and Social Action, the three project partner clusters they led were selected to the Joint Monitoring Committee of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in January 2016.
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- Sustained work with SACE’s two BMO partners – the Edo State Farmers’ Cooperative Agency Limited (ESCFAL) and the Ugboroke Progressive Fish Farmers Association (UPFFA) – led to the completion of targeted research and the development of advocacy and policy briefs on agricultural policy in Edo state and aquaculture in Delta state.
Successful enabling environment actions
- Through partnership with Homevida’s Nigeria Integrity Film Awards, where USAID awarded the movie “Champions of Our Time” for its effective spotlight on issues affecting PWDs, SACE has raised the profile of TAGG issues in the entertainment industry. - SACE trended on the Nigerian Twitter scene for over six hours in February 2016, while partnering with Enough is Enough (EiE) during the ‘Let’s Talk Governance’ platform of Social Media Week-Lagos to reach millions of Nigerians via social media and building capacity of SMW-Lagos participants.
PROGRESS SUMMARY BY COMPONENT
Below we provide a high-level summary of progress across project components and cross-cutting areas. Further details are available in the Q1 report (submitted in January 2016) and in the Q2 that follows.
Component 1: Capacity Building
Capacity building begins to yield results. In the FY2016 Annual Work Plan, SACE and USAID committed to deepening skills and competencies in core areas and moving increasingly towards a customized coaching and mentoring approach for partner clusters. During the first six months of FY2016, the project completed 19 capacity- building activities – ten project activities and nine partner activities – reaching 713 persons. 43 percent of participants were women, five percent were PWDs, and 49.2 percent were youth.
Key activities revolved around improving capacity in work plan development; elements of gender and social inclusion; conflict sensitivity; media training for better reporting on governance issues; transparency and accountability principles; coaching and mentoring; and advanced advocacy and public awareness skills with partners conducted a range of step-down training within their clusters. SACE also realized growth in the inclusion of organizations representing marginalized persons in Component 1 activities. During the first six months of FY2016, 87 new organizations representing marginalized groups were involved with SACE programming, exceeding the target of 60 set for the period under Indicator 1.3. Furthermore, SACE exceeded all reported targets for the reporting period under Component 1 and is on course to achieve and exceed its annual targets.
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Component II: Policy and Key Stakeholder Engagement
Engagement and advocacy activities surged during the first six months of FY2016, which can be credited to an increase in SACE partners’ confidence as a result of capacity- building support and the momentum they have built on their issues. During the period under review, 45 organizations demonstrated improved networking, significantly exceeding our target under Indicator 2.1. This overachievement is explained by the rapid expansion of national clusters and improved cluster networking. By including Niger Delta clusters in the STARNET mapping exercise, SACE is poised to grow these results even further during the second half of the year. This improved networking has led to demonstrable collective impact approaches. For example, three clusters came together to campaign around access to health through their 1,000 person march, which received extensive media coverage, to advocate with legislators for financing of the recently passed National Health Act.
In addition, SACE partners worked on 21 separate policies, regulations, and administrative processes versus an annual target of 16 under Indicator 2.2 and this significant overachievement will continue through FY2016. As noted in the Q1 FY2016 report, this is because the indicator target was set with the assumption that each cluster would work on only one each. In reality, all clusters are working on a number of policies, regulations, and administrative procedures simultaneously and at various levels – national and sub-national. Therefore, the actual number of policies could become significant and will vary per cluster depending on their geographical footprint as well as the capacity of cluster members to carry out work on localized policies. SACE’s Policy Tracker and Outcome Harvesting Framework are being finalized and will not only capture interim outcomes and highlight partners’ progress under this indicator, but will also provide the foundation for FY2017 targets under this indicator.
During the six-month period, all core grantees and core cluster members – totaling 88 organizations – were involved in advocacy across the 16 clusters, while the wider field of CSOs receiving USG assistance engaged in advocacy interventions continued to expand and will be reported fully in Q4. The project also launched the Innovation and Spread the Word Fund (ISWF) Annual Program Statement (APS) and selection processes have started in earnest with the first innovation grants expected in Q3. SACE is on track to achieve or exceed all targets across Component 2 indicators for FY2016.
Component III: Public Awareness
SACE has witnessed exponential growth under this component through its targeted strategies of – supporting cluster campaigns; enhancing dialogue and discourse; using social and traditional media; and exploring innovations that promote greater public awareness and engagement. The project’s own activities – through its flagship engagement with SMW-Lagos; its innovative partnership with the entertainment industry through Homevida to support the Nigeria Integrity Film Awards in December 2015; direct media capacity strengthening; and 2.0 Mindset Series events – have collectively served to build a strong public awareness across SACE partner issues. SACE partners have developed clear campaigns, surpassed the expected number of policy discourses, and significantly exceeded their target media transactions for the first half of FY2016.
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SACE initiatives around the use of social media – principally Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube – have yielded significant reach for the project. At SMW-Lagos in February 2016, the project had a reach of 9.7 million Twitter accounts and the overall reach of the combined activities of the project and its partners on social media – Twitter and Facebook combined – has exceeded 31 million at the half-year point. The project partners also have a strong presence in traditional media – newspapers, radio, and TV – along with a growing online readership. The ISWF APS, highlighted above, will also enable SACE to meet its targets for innovative public awareness approaches.
Following significant over-achievement of targets in FY2015, Component 3 targets were revised upwards for FY2016 and SACE continues to post robust results against all indicators and targets.
Component IV: Niger Delta
The project’s work has deepened significantly in the Niger Delta. Initially, our approach was to work with individual CSOs and BMOs to strengthen them to a point where they are performing in a focused manner on their issues and collaborating with a few other CSOs. However, a number of partners have started performing at full cluster level, achieving outcomes, and networking effectively. As a result, the project has extended its STARNET mapping to all Niger Delta partners and administered the STAR Cluster Feedback Survey through Survey Monkey, effectively transitioning them to full-fledged clusters. This has laid the groundwork for our Niger Delta partners to effectively participate in the full range of assessment processes to measure net change, which will take place in Q4.
Key activities during the first six months of FY2016 included 16 capacity-building initiatives on work planning; gender and social inclusion, conflict sensitivity, media training; TAGG skills; and advocacy and public awareness skills. Project partners also conducted a range of trainings to cluster members. In total, 577 persons benefited from capacity-building initiatives and 43 Niger Delta organizations representing marginalized groups – from within and outside the clusters – participated in SACE activities. In addition, the full range of partners made progress on their issues, strengthened engagement and advanced their public awareness activities, including participating fully in wider events such as SMW-Lagos. Working through eight campaigns, Niger Delta partners worked on 11 policy areas, undertook 16 policy discourses, and jointly generated 75 media transactions during the period under review. They were also strong users of social media – reaching over 4.5 million Twitter accounts. The BMOs completing their research work during the reporting period and will commence fully engaging with relevant stakeholders and the public in the period in the remainder of FY2016.
The project undertook a major disaggregation of the PMP to ensure the capture of Niger Delta results across all components, as well as under Component 4 indicators and the project is on course to meet or exceed targets across all Niger Delta-specific indicators for FY 2016.
Monitoring and Evaluation
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The project undertook a number of key M&E activities during the first six months. Highlights include:
- The revision of the project PMP, increasing targets across a number of indicators and disaggregating data to capture progress across national and Niger Delta partners; - The review of project systems and documentation in line with the USAID/MEMS II Data Quality Assessment (DQA) conducted in Q4 FY 2015; - Finalization and implementation of the project Management Information System (MIS); - Completion of the STAR Index report, the STAR Mobile pilot rollout, and development of the Outcome Harvesting Framework for project progress reporting; - Commenced work on development of the Policy Tracker; and - Conducted routine partner support and compliance visits across all partners.
INTEGRATION OF CROSS CUTTING ISSUES
Gender Equality and Female Empowerment and Social Inclusion
The project undertook a range of initiatives during the reporting period including:
- Conduct of a Gender Audit across and training for all sixteen anchors, identifying key follow-on actions and procuring services to address these; - Brought on board a total of 87 new organizations of marginalized persons (focusing on women, PWDs, and youth) to engage in advocacy work; - Ensured the participation of women, PWDs, and youth in project capacity- building initiatives. Out of the 1,290, 40% were women, 44% were youth and 2% were PWDs. This latter area remains a key challenge which the project continues to address; - Focused SACE support of the Homevida Integrity Film Awards on issues facing PWDs with the movie “Champions of Our Time” received a N1m endowment from USAID; and - Highlighted issues facing PWD during the Kano edition of the 2.0 Mindset series event.
Enabling Environment
The project maintained a strong political economy analysis approach to its work, with the prime aim protecting and expanding the space for civic and civil society engagement as well as promoting broader pubic engagement on issues of TAGG. Highlights include:
- Engagement with the legislature was achieved by support to organizations and civic groups engaging with the Frivolous Petitions Bill, which seeks to regulate freedom of expression. So far, the bill has not passed its second reading. In addition, the project made contact and engaged the House Committee on Civil Society and Donors, as well as the Senate Committee on Civil Society and Diaspora of the National Assembly;
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- Engaging with the entertainment industry through the Homevida Nigeria Integrity Film Awards in December 2015 as highlighted above; - Creating space for broad civil society participation on governance issues through the SMW- Lagos 2016 “Let’s Talk Governance” activity in collaboration with Enough is Enough (EiE). For a quick review of outcomes from SMW-Lagos, please watch this short video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr434nUfHPw); and - Promoting learning and engagement through the innovative 2.0 Mindset series, the project was able to create an innovative learning and engagement space for CSOs and the broader public that has received acclaim and has attracted high caliber panelists including the Minister of Environment Hon. Amina Mohammed, senior legislators, government officials, and notable civil society activists and practitioners.
Youth Development
The project continued strong youth engagement across national and Niger Delta partners, with youth accounting for 44% of all beneficiaries of capacity-building initiatives across the reporting period, with a high of 51% in Q2. Key highlights include:
- SMW-Lagos activities reached significant numbers of young people to engage them in governance discourse; - Youth partner, Youth Alive Foundation (YAF) continued to gain ground with its campaign for the passage of a Youth Empowerment Bill through the 10%4youth campaign; - The Extractives Cluster has initiated a partnership with the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), which has a reach across 265 universities. This will catalyze a new generation of savvy advocates for extractives transparency and accountability; and - Niger Delta partner, Nembe City Development Foundation (NCDF), is working with significant youth populations on peace issues in Bayelsa state.
Sustainability Mechanisms
The project has continued to demonstrate a commitment to sustainability through
- Embedding its ‘Collective impact’ approach through the work of clusters and the sharing through the 2.0 Mindset series; - Engagement with a wide set of actors directly including legislators, the media, and the entertainment industry to amplify and sustain messaging; - Supporting partners to strengthen internal capacity and extend sub-granting capacity to partners; and - Nearly exclusive use of Nigerian staff and short-term consultants to deliver programs of work.
Policy and Governance Work
The project’s focus is primarily in this area and all of SACE’s work is geared towards this. The project and its partners have sustained direct and continuous engagement with key GON stakeholders such as the legislature at national and sub-national levels and
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key Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) as described above and in the details contained in our quarterly report below. SACE partners have engaged in 21 separate policy areas to date in FY2016. As the Outcome Harvesting Framework and Policy Tracker are concluded, the extent of impact on policy and governance will become evident.
Local Capacity Development
As is the case with “Policy and Governance Work”, SACE holds a primary focus on local capacity development. The project has reinforced this by:
- Maintaining and expanding its core 16 issue policy clusters, expanding overall core members from 56 to 88 in the period under review; - Conducting training and capacity building for a total of 1,290 persons during the first six months of FY2016; - Utilizing international technical partner, Root Change, to develop and strengthen staff and partner capacity; and - Recruiting and deploying eight local short-term consultants to support the work of SACE in a variety of areas.
Conflict Mitigation
During the period, SACE maintained and deepened its focus on conflict mitigation by:
- Conducting a Conflict Awareness and Sensitivity survey across all partners and providing training; - Maintaining a high level of conflict-related political economy analysis for the project and its partners; and - Providing routine reporting on conflict mitigation in USAID quarterly reporting.
No project activities contributed to or were affected by conflict issues during the first half of FY2016.
STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATION AND INVOLVEMENT
SACE is anchored by a strong focus on building collective impact through collective action, strengthening networks, networking and alliance building, and promoting public awareness and engagement. As such, the project continuously ensures the participation and involvement of a wide variety of stakeholders. During the first six months of FY 2016, the project:
- Engaged a wider range of civil society groups through a variety of interventions, such as collaboration with CSOs around the Frivolous Petitions Bill, through the Nigeria Integrity Film Awards, SMW-Lagos, and the 2.0 Mindset series; - Maintained close and productive relationship with USAID, securing their support and engagement across all project activities. Highlights include USAID involvement in the Integrity Film Awards, SMW-Lagos, as well as joint partner visits involving the USAID Deputy Mission Director, Aler Grubbs, and Peace and Democratic Governance Director, Dr. Blair King;
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- Continued robust engagement of key GON stakeholders by partners and the project itself, reaching key institutions, the legislature, relevant MDAs and regional organizations, recording significant successes; - Maintained strong and positive working relations with PIND, including collaboration and participation in NDDF, support to SMW-Lagos, and regular communication, dialogue and discussion around project issues and utilization of the PIND in-kind grant; and - Worked closely with MEMS II on revisions to and adoption of the PMP.
MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES
Grants and Strategic Activities Fund Management
During the first six months of FY2016, the project recorded strong growth in grants disbursement and management. Highlights include:
- The disbursement of a total of $485,640 to grantees in the period, remaining on track for FY2016 grant disbursement targets; - Conclusion of the USAID grants obligation and smooth operationalization of the LOC grants drawdown mechanism; - The completion of 10 out of 16 grantee contract amendments to take account of revised work plans. Only the two BMOs and four other grantees remain outstanding, as the decision to extend their grants was only made in Q2; - Concluded the development and issuance of the IWSF APS; - Contracting EiE for Social Media Week; and - Developing the framework for sub-granting by select national anchor partners.
Communications
During the period under review, the project successfully:
- Provided regular weekly reporting to USAID; - Maintenance of the project social media sites – Let’s Talk Governance (Facebook) and GovTalkNG (Twitter); - Produced a documentary on Social Media Week Lagos; - Completed its website development and submitted this for USAID ‘go live’ approval; and - Maintained and communicated a regular detailed Project Calendar.
Human Resources
The project maintained a full complement of staff throughout most of the period under review. Key points worthy of note include:
- The onboarding of the replacement M&E Advisor; - The replacement of the Finance and Administration Manager; - The replacement of the Grants Officer; - Provision of maternity leave cover for the Grants Manager and Niger Delta Program Officer;
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- The strategic use of eight local Short-Term Technical Assistants (STTA) to support program work; - Salary review for SACE local staff conducted; and - Diversity paper on SACE staff submitted to USAID
Security
The project has witnessed an ongoing period of instability during the reporting period. Continued attacks by Boko Haram, unrest in the Niger Delta, clashes between local communities and nomadic herdsmen, agitations for autonomy by Biafra separatists, and post-election violence are key elements that contributed to the instability.
The project had no direct incidents affecting our work, continuing to operationalize its robust security protocols, revising the Emergency Action Plan (EAP), and reorganizing activities based on local intelligence in order to avoid security incidents.
Finance
Project spending by line item and component is laid out in the table below with the major line item spending for Q1 and Q2.
Actual spending for the first half of FY2016 was 11.6% above expected spending, due to SACE staff and grantees coming out of the end-of-year holidays faster and with significantly higher levels of productivity than initially anticipated. Of particular note, SACE managed to exceed training activities and grants disbursements with lower
20 STRENGTHENING ADVOCACY AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT - QUARTERLY PROGRESS REPORT (Q1 FY 2016) salaries than anticipated. This illustrates the efficiency of our team and the value-for- money that is being provided on behalf of USAID.
LESSONS LEARNED AND IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES
Emerging lessons for the first half of the year included:
- The need to continue the customization of various tools (STAR Mobile, STAR Index, Outcome Harvesting Framework) account for lessons learned and local contextual issues, as well as to embed skills in the local project team through an extended surge visit from technical partner Root Change; - The need to upgrade the status of Niger Delta collaborative groups into full- fledged clusters in order to improve their ability to drive for results on their issues; - The need to invest further on issues of gender and social inclusion in order to integrate marginalized groups, along with their interests and perspectives, in a sustainable manner; and - The need to invest in a more focused, cluster-by-cluster coaching and mentoring approach to embed learning and support partners towards achieving results.
Key implementation challenges included:
- The turnover of cluster members as the project transitioned into the new year. The project has since taken action to stabilize clusters, limiting the loss of capacity and momentum as new cluster members come up to speed. We currently have a stable and grounded set of clusters who can now focus on driving for results; - Staff transition issues, primarily during Q1 of FY2016, required created project staff to manage multiple roles, while project leadership focused on quickly filling openings with highly-qualified replacements; - Project learning and knowledge sharing has been hampered by the absence of a website platform for sharing, which has been submitted to USAID for ‘go live’ approval; and - Incremental funding obligations have been a regular point of conversation during Q2 of FY2016 and SACE recently adjusted Q3 and Q4 activities as a reflection of this. At the time this report was submitted, SACE’s current obligation levels were sufficient for just two additional months of operations.
PLANNED ACTIVITIES FOR Q3 AND Q4, FY2016
The project has been requested to reschedule activities in the Annual Work Plan during Q2. This has been completed and the project remains on course to achieve its work plan for FY 2016 as renegotiated in February 2016. Key activities include:
Quarter 3 (April 2016 – June 2016)
- Sub-grant training to select national anchor grantees (April) - PIND sharing event (April) - Surge from Root Change to Field Office (April/May)
21 STRENGTHENING ADVOCACY AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT - QUARTERLY PROGRESS REPORT (Q1 FY 2016) - ISWF grantee selection (May) - Innovation Design Workshop for shortlisted ISWF applicants (May) - Monitoring and Evaluation/Knowledge Sharing Workshop (May/June – national and Niger Delta) - Niger Delta Civic Engagement Forum (June – Benin) - Issue of Niger Delta RFA 2 (May) - Partner CEO meeting (June)
Quarter 4 (July – September 2016)
- SACE Review and Reflection team event (July) - Innovation Design Workshop, ISWF, Tranche 2 (July) - Grants Refresher Training (August) - STAR INDEX survey (August) - Gender and Social Inclusion Training of Trainers (August) - Annual Learning Summit (September) - Media Training (September)
WHAT DOES USAID NOT KNOW THAT IT NEEDS TO KNOW
Key issues discussed during the quarter included:
- The decision to extend the Niger Delta BMOs (actioned) - The introduction of sub-granting for select partners (actioned) - The need to implement a Root Change surge assignment (actioned) - Staff changes (actioned) - Due to aforementioned incremental funding obligation challenges, the project has shifted Q3 and Q4 program activities (actioned) - Budget realignment to include increase in total grants value (actioned) 2. QUARTER ACTIVITY PROGRESS REPORT
This report provides a summary of progress at the mid-year point for FY 2016 (October 2015 to March 2016) as well as provides a more detailed report of progress during the second quarter for the third year of the project (January 1, 2016, to March 31, 2016). During Year 2, the project focused heavily on building the capacity of its grantees and their clusters to advocate for reforms and build strong public awareness. Having achieved a significant amount of progress on building capacity, and building on the program success achieved in FY 2015, the project has shifted its primary emphasis to supporting increased engagement and public awareness in order to enable its partners to begin achieving results on their designated reform issues, while continuing with targeted capacity-building efforts. 2.1 Quarterly Progress Summary
During the second quarter, the project completed all its key activities and witnessed a rise in partner engagement with key Government of Nigeria (GON) stakeholders as well as growth in public awareness and engagement work. During the quarter, the project
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made significant progress in refining its approach to tracking progress on interim outcomes that are being achieved. The project refined its cluster outcome harvesting approach and progressed work on the policy tracker it is developing (to be finalized in Quarter 3).
During the quarter, the project and its partners achieved significant advances across the key areas in the engagement and commitment to action of GON stakeholders and public awareness and engagement. For example: o The Extractives cluster, under the leadership of CISLAC, made a number of significant strides against their objectives: . President Buhari appointed CISLAC’s Kola Banwo as civil society representative on the Nigeria Extractives Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Board. NEITI is a key stakeholder in driving for a number of the reforms that the extractives cluster has been pushing for . There was key movement on reforms which the cluster has been advocating for including: government actions to begin the process of unbundling/reorganizing the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in order to make it effective and accountable (for example, a call for the autonomous operations of the independent business units within the NNPC group to remove conflicts of interest and improve independent reporting and accountability; publication of monthly accounts, and a range of technical changes that improve oil company accountability for production levels); the setting up of a Legislative Committee to redraft the contentious Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB); More transparent accounting of the remittances from Oil and Gas companies to the Federation account through more transparent reporting by relevant GON authorities to the Nigerian public o The development by the Inclusive Education Cluster (led by JONAPWD) of key documents for engagement with various government agencies – including a Factsheet and Policy Brief which will be launched formally in April 2016. Already it will be recalled that a memorandum had been submitted in February (1 -5) 2016to the Joint Council on Education for onward input into the emerging draft Policy on Inclusive Education. o Sustained engagement by the Osun Women Farmers Association – OWFA (a member of the Women Lead Agriculture Cluster led by WARD-C) resulted in the Osun State Government providing land to the women as well as training and the provision of farm inputs and processing machinery. In addition, OWFA has now been included in the executive committee of the state All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) that is the key farmers association negotiating with government and women farmers are currently under-represented. This
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addition will strengthen the voices of women farmers in decision-making processes. o The Public Finance in Health Cluster (led by CENSOJ) has submitted a proposal to the National Assembly to monitor the implementation of capital project monitoring linked to the delivery of maternal and newborn health (MNCH) outcomes jointly by members of the National Assembly Committee and relevant cluster members of CENSOJ. o Building on the release of its research reports in December 2015, the Accountability in Education in the North East Cluster (led by CITAD) has recorded successful government response in Bauchi State, with legislators conducting an audit to determine the extent of the issues, undertaking public advocacy through the media resulting in the Bauchi State Government declaring a ‘state of emergency’ in Education and promising to make budgetary provisions to address this. The cluster hopes to build on this with other states and also undertook a budget analysis in Gombe State, making recommendations to the State Assembly o The cluster working on Access to Health for Women with Disabilities (led by DRAC) recorded some impressive progress this quarter. For example, the increased commitment by the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Women’s Affairs generated (and reported in Q4 of FY 2015 and Q1 of FY 2016) has culminated in the finalization of the Policy of Reproductive Sexual Health for Women with Disabilities (WWD) which has now been submitted for ministries for validation and adoption – this is expected by May 2016. In addition, the cluster members in Jos (Centre for Independent Living) conduced successful advocacy resulting in the Pankshin General Hospital upgrading access – building and commissioning two ramps in February 2016. o The Effective MNCH Cluster (under the leadership of HERFON) has successfully advocated for the adoption of the Primary Health Care Under one Roof (PHCUOR) Bill which the Governor has now presented formally to the Katsina State House of Assembly for passage. In addition, the Kaduna State Governor pledged to return 14% of the Health budget transferred in 2015 to education back to Health in the 2017 Budget. The cluster will monitor this in the coming year. o The Accountability in Education cluster (anchored by HDI) intensified efforts with the Enugu State House of Assembly to drive the state to provide counterpart funding to access the UBEC matching grant and deliver quality education in the state. The cluster is, however, yet to secure a clear commitment. In the Niger Delta, a number of significant results were also recorded, including: o Through the work being carried out by the cluster on Effective Niger Delta Institutions (led by LITE-Africa), a platform for access by civil society organizations to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was successfully advocated for (in collaboration with ANEEJ) – and which NDDC promised to convene in the last quarter. This has resulted in the establishment of a Joint Monitoring Committee by NDDC which includes three project grantees (ANEEJ, LITE-Africa and SDIC). The committee, once inaugurated, will provide
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critical oversight on the implementation of agreed projects. In Delta state too, the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC) committed to joint planning and programming with the Egbema Gbaramatu Development Foundation (EGDF) – a cluster member. o In Edo state, following advocacy by the Resources Management of Niger Delta Institutions cluster (led by ANEEJ), contractors returned to site on previously abandoned projects. This was a major recommendation and advocacy point arising from the Citizens Report Card and following commitments made by government at the media roundtable organized in Benin by the cluster. o In Imo state, the Open Budget cluster advocating for the completion of abandoned capital projects (led by CCIDESOR) made significant strides with the completion of three further abandoned school projects (in Umunko, Umuduru, and Akabor) as well as a government town hall project completed with flood relief funds (in Oguta). Contractors have also returned to site on other Health center projects in two further locations in Oguta Local Government Area. o In Akwa Ibom state, the Youth Advocacy Cluster gained significant political traction with the Speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly committing to engage with the 10%4Youth Campaign. The Speaker also provided critical advice on the legislative advocacy process and urged the cluster to consider this in their approach. Other secured endorsements of the campaign by Cluster leader YAF include from State Assemblyman Hon. Mark Essiet and two traditional rulers. o The Peace Cluster (anchored by NCDF) successfully inaugurated the Central Peace Working Committee (CPWC) involving representatives of the Nigerian Police (NPF), Department for State Security (DSS), Joint Task Force (JTF) and NSCDC – with a set of 15 hotline numbers to enable citizens report incidents promptly, which are now operational. The cluster also strengthened the capacity of community users of the IPDU (SMS-based) incident-reporting platform. Already, 65 incidents have been reported in from five local government areas. o The two Business Membership Organizations (BMOs) have both now concluded their research and developed policy papers for engagement, which will commence in earnest in Q3. On Public Awareness, a number of successes were also recorded during the quarter under review. These include:
o A significant increase in the engagement of the public via social media. During the quarter, the highlight was the hosting (in partnership with Enough is Enough – EiE) of a successful second edition of ‘Let’s Talk Governance’ at Social Media Week Lagos. The event attracted over three hundred participants and had a Twitter Reach of nearly 10 million accounts. o Partner activity and successes also rose during the quarter. For example, . Nationally, CENSOJ continued with its impressive social media outreach, reaching over 4.5 million Twitter accounts and held a press conference on the 2016 MNHC budget; JONAPWD undertook media visits to the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and Radio Nigeria (FRCN) where they broadcast heir Inclusive Education agenda
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reaching a potential audience of about 14 million Nigerians; HERFON conducted extensive advocacy and awareness meetings with Jamaa Nasiru Islam (JNI), Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) among others in the faith based community to canvass for public support; CISLAC secured the collaboration of the national leadership of the National Association of Students in Nigeria (NANS) – which gives access to a huge populations of students across 265 universities in Nigeria. It will be recalled that this is a significant plank for the cluster’s public awareness and sustainability strategies. . In the Niger Delta, the two BMOs held media activities brining their issues to the fore – notably resulting in the Edo State government contacting ESCFAL to discuss the Agriculture policy for Edo state; YAF conducted a grassroots mobilization drive across 10 local government areas in the state – recruiting 33 new volunteer advocates; SDIC launched ‘Open budget’ week in the Niger Delta with a range of activities across traditional and new media across five states. The project is striving to build collective demand action and greater collaboration across demand-supply lines in order to deliver on a collective impact approach. The Cluster model emphasizes this through clear roles and responsibilities of cluster members and through joint action across clusters. Building on the successes reported in the last quarter, this quarter also saw further evidence of the effectiveness of SACE’s ‘Collective Impact Approach” in driving for results. For example: o the joint advocacy by the clusters led by LITE-Africa and ANEEJ succeeded in securing a CSO platform for wider CSOs to engage with NDDC and find space on its joint monitoring committee; o CENSOJ, DRAC and HERFON have continued to use their joint platform, built around the 1000 person march last quarter to engage the national assembly on health reform focusing on better implementation of the National Health Act of 2014, with a focus on increased budgeting, access for Women with Disabilities to reproductive health services, and better delivery of health care at the primary health care level; o CISLAC’s engagement with NANS represents a significant growth in the cluster’s reach and access across the country to young advocates who will sustain the campaign for extractives sector transparency and accountability; o All SACE clusters experienced growth in the numbers of organizations joining forces to achieve results. The project expanded the STARNET process to the Niger Delta, generating a baseline for all Niger Delta clusters in the quarter under review. More details are provided in the Progress section under Indicator 2.1 below. The project itself undertook a range of activities, which have contributed to the success of partners during the quarter. These include: o A total of 17 capacity building activities reaching 595 people conducted by the project nationally and in the Niger Delta (238 women, 357 men, 31 PWDs, and 299 youth).
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o The design and implementation of a revised Cluster Coaching and Mentoring model which aims to provide tailored support to cluster members and assist them to achieve their project-life goals o Further refinement in the approach to mapping progress through the outcome harvesting tools and the further work on the development of the Policy Tracker o Hosting of a successful ‘Let’s Talk Governance’ session at Social Media Week 2016 reaching nearly 10 million people o Building on the launch in December 2015, the project held a further four 2.0 Mindset Series events across Abuja, Lagos, Owerri, and Kano, reaching 413 people, with high level speakers including the Minister of Environment HM Amina J Mohammed; Chair of the National Assembly Committee on Civil Society (Hon Akpatason); as well as other key government of Nigeria and civil society activists and practitioners. o The project also concluded the revisions to the Performance Management Plan, in collaboration with USAID and MEMS II providing for higher targets and greater disaggregation of results across national and Niger Delta categories. o The project formally launched the APS for its Innovation and Spread the Word Fund (ISWF), which calls for innovative ideas to improve engagement and partnership with key stakeholders as well as innovative approaches to public awareness and engagement. With these activities, the project has succeeded in firmly moving from a primary focus on capacity building to supporting clusters to use the capacity to drive for issue-specific results with key targets as well as building public awareness. 2.2 Quarterly Progress Narrative
2.2.1 Component 1: Capacity Building
This component focuses on strengthening the capacity of selected partners and their cluster members to develop the appropriate skills to be effective at generating and catalyzing reforms on key TAGG issues nationally. The project has continued with its program of capacity building actions as set out in the FY 2016 Work Plan – with a focus on deepening capacity across key areas and focusing more intensely on mentoring and coaching approaches designed to meet cluster-specific needs. The project in National Partners at the Advanced Advocacy FY 2016 is also encouraging step-down and Public Awareness Workshop capacity building within clusters, depending on the sectoral competencies of different cluster members. During the quarter, all anticipated activities under this component were fully executed according to the Work Plan and project Calendar. Details as they relate to the Indicators in the PMP are set out below.
Performance Status against Indicators
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Indicator 1.1 Number of Organizations showing Net Change:
This indicator measures the progress of national partner organizations (Anchors and Cluster members) towards having the capacity to catalyze reform on their issues. Progress is measured against performance on their issues, using the STAR Index approach, STARNET, and (from Q4 FY 2016) STAR Mobile (which is being rolled out from Q2 FY 2016 following its Pilot in FY 2015 and Q1 of FY 2016). The project measures this indicator annually during Q4 of the respective year; therefore, no result is expected in this present reporting period.
Key activities: Even though reporting will not take place until Q4, the project has continued to undertake activities that will contribute to the results to be reported. For example,
Working with the specific results from the Outcome Harvesting processes, the project has engaged all eight clusters in extensive discussions about progress and worked with them to refine strategies and priorities during the Coaching and Mentoring sessions and at the Advanced Advocacy Workshop (see reporting on these under 1.2 below) in order to improve the results. The project has also facilitated discussions around elements of the Drivers (with a special focus on Cluster relations) using the STAR Mobile Survey Monkey tool to generate discussions and action points to help the anchor and cluster members to refine roles, responsibilities and begin the process of inter-cluster feedback which is an essential part of the process of net change. Key Challenges. The project identified three important challenges during the quarter and has begun work toward their resolution during the remainder of FY 2016. They relate to:
In FY 2016, there has been turnover in cluster membership, which has hampered continuity and slowed down some cluster engagement as new members are brought up to speed. The project has supported anchors and new cluster members to quickly gain understanding and internalize capacity-strengthening inputs delivered in FY 2014 and FY 2015. As a result of this challenge, the project has decided to postpone the Validation and beneficiary feedback exercise until early in Q4, focusing instead on building cluster collaboration and internalization of the STAR drivers as well as supporting clusters to deepen and refine ‘Cluster Declarations’ to build coherence and joint action.
Priorities for Q3.
Support individual clusters building on the Outcome Harvesting results for each cluster to be better able to map interim outcomes and identify priorities for action until the end of FY 2016. Continue to refine the methodological approach to STAR process in light of takeaways from FY 2015 for the Annual Learning Summit (ALS) processes.
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Indicator 1.2 Number of unique people (CSO members) trained in unique subjects:
This indicator measures the number of unique people trained, coached, and mentored in unique capacity areas during the quarter. The priority for the quarter (and the rest of the year) is linked to supporting partners to increase impact, especially in the areas of advocacy and public awareness.
Key activities: During the quarter, the project Understanding Google, Twitter, Facebook slightly exceeded its target – reaching 432 unique Analytics Master Class individuals – achieving 108% of the 400 target. This was achieved from six project driven activities and three partner-driven activities. These activities included:
Project events:
The SACE Transparency, Accountability and Good Governance Workshop – which aimed to embed principles and practice across clusters. This event was held in Lagos Two Master classes which ran concurrently (focused on social media analytics for Facebook, Twitter and Google) during Social Media Week Lagos Two Cluster coaching sessions held in Abuja with the Women in Agriculture Cluster and the Women with Disabilities Cluster aimed at building skills for Outcome harvesting. A workshop focused on Advanced Advocacy and Public Awareness skills for all clusters that focused on using the results from Outcome Harvesting to prioritize next actions as well as providing additional advocacy skills and fine-tuning public awareness messaging. In addition, two partners – CISLAC and CENSOJ – held activities
CISLAC provided skills to journalists on investigative journalism as well as institutional capacity building for Cluster members CENSOJ held a Cluster capacity building session for cluster members on priority setting and planning against their cluster work plan.
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Details of these activities, with disaggregated attendee data, are set out in the summary table below:
TABLE 1(A): NATIONAL TRAINING PROGRAMS, QUARTER 2 (Jan-March) 2016 SACE National Programs Event Date Venue M F Total PWD Youth Adult TAGG Workshop February 9-11, 2016 Lagos 36 32 68 7 32 36 SMW Facebook Master Class February 25, 2016 Lagos 85 40 125 1 80 45 SMW Twitter/Goggle Master Class February 25, 2016 Lagos 29 27 56 0 38 18 WARD-C Cluster Coaching Session March 8-9, 2016 Abuja 2 11 13 0 3 7 DRAC Cluster Coaching Session March 8-9, 2016 Abuja 4 13 17 6 10 10 Advanced Advocacy/ PA Skills March 15-18, 2016 Kano 36 29 65 8 24 41 SACE Training Total 192 152 344 22 187 157 National Partners Trainings Event Date Venue M F Total PWD Youth Adult CISLAC Training on Investigative Journalism February 23-24, 2016 Port Harcourt 22 6 28 1 15 13 CISLAC Institutional capacity Strengthening Training March 23-24, 2016 Uyo 12 8 20 1 8 12 CENSOJ: Capacity Building/ Planning Workshop February 16-17, 2016 Abuja 30 10 40 1 20 20 National Partner Training Total 64 24 88 3 43 45
SACE & National Partner Training Total 256 176 432 25 230 202
Key challenges:
The turnover of cluster members in FY 2016 has required extra effort to ensure all cluster members fully understand cluster objectives and have the necessary skills to contribute effectively. The project worked extensively during Q2 to build this knowledge –bridge with anchors. Priorities for Q3.
Sub-granting Training for 4 national cluster anchors Innovation Design capacity building Workshop for short-listed ISWF applicants Monitoring and Evaluation/Knowledge-sharing workshop Ongoing Coaching and Mentoring and Partner Support Visits according to rolling calendar schedule Indicator 1.3: Number of USG-funded organizations representing marginalized constituencies trying to affect government policy or conducting government oversight
This indicator measures the participation and engagement of marginalized constituencies in processes. The indicator counts cumulatively, the number of organizations.
Key activities: The direct activities of the existing clusters are the key mechanism by which this work is carried forward. During the quarter, a total of 24 new organizations were identified as being involved – through engagement directly with the project and
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through the work of clusters. This represents 96% of the target for the quarter. Nationally, 19 organizations were involved while five were involved. The list of organizations is provided below.
A key highlight for the quarter was the extraordinary participation of Persons with Disabilities in the Kano edition of the 2.0 Mindset Series. With one of the keynote panelists being a notable PWD activist, the issues of PWDs dominated the discussion. Aside from skills sharing, the event brought specific advocacy pressure to bear on the Kano State government representatives present. As a direct result, the legislator present pledged to support a disability bill for Kano State and made himself available to the groups present to discuss this further. A total of 23 PWDs attended this event, making it the single largest discourse event with PWDs. The Lagos event had 18, while the average Hon. Minister of Environment, Amina for the other two was five. The Niger Delta J. Mohammed endorsing Access to continues to lag behind on the participation of health for WWD Campaign PWDs and the project will explore specific ways to improve this.
List of CSOs representing Marginalized Constituencies trying to affect Government Policies or conduction oversight (2.4.1-11)
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National Clusters Group New CENSOJ Cluster Members = 12 Location Type Grassroots Women FCT Women Nigerian Women Agro Allied Farmers Association (NIWAAFA) FCT Women Peculiar Widow FCT Women Solid Women Initiative FCT Women The New Nigeria Youth Imo Youth Youth for Peace & Development Bauchi Youth Centre for Citizens with Disability Delta PWD Neighbourhood Initiative for Women Advancement (NIWA) Ebonyi Women Gender Care Initiative Imo Women Devcom Communication Network (Youth-focused Ogun, Lagos Youth Beyond Boundaries Leadership Initiative (Youth-focused) Benue Youth UN Women Initiative Kogi Women New CISLAC Cluster Members = 4 National Association of Nigerian Students Kaduna Youth Centre for Youth Entrepreneurship Rivers Youth Society for Women & Youths Affairs Rivers Women Women & Community Youth Empowerment Akwa-Ibom Women New DRAC Cluster Members = 3 Agency for PWD Bauchi PWD Women and Youth Development Organization Bauchi Women Women with Disability Integrity Development Initiative Bauchi PWD National Sub-Total = 19 Niger Delta Clusters New ANEEJ Cluster Member = 1 Gender & Development Action Abia Women New CCIDESOR Cluster Members = 4 Voice of Women Imo Women Society for the Widows & Orphans Imo Women Youth Association Imo Youth Women, Youths & Elderly Rights International Imo Women Sub-Total, Niger Delta = 5 TOTAL (National + Niger Delta) = 24
Challenges:
The project continues to face challenges in supporting all clusters to effectively integrate organizations of marginalized groups into their cluster work. This is especially so for groups representing the interests of Persons with Disabilities. Following discussions with USAID, the project has deferred proposed follow on training and actions around Gender and Social Inclusion (GESI) until Q4. This is likely to affect the ability of partner organizations to fully integrate GESI into all cluster mindsets. The project deliberately included persons with Disability on the Kano edition of the 2.0 Mindset Series to increase awareness and encourage clusters to integrate this into their work.
Priorities for Q2.
Ongoing cluster-specific support to encourage and increase GESI within clusters Explore strategies to increase the participation of PWDs in the Niger Delta.
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2.2.2 Component 2: Policy and Key Stakeholder Engagement
This component focuses on supporting and enabling partners to directly engage, establish, and deepen partnerships with key stakeholders, especially those within GON, on specific advocacy issues. This is a major focus for the third year of the project across all indicators and is key to moving the project toward results. With clear GON stakeholder personnel now largely in place, work on this has gained significant momentum during the quarter as reported in the Summary narrative above. Additional highlights are presented below. Specifically, there is also a fuller narrative on ‘Improved Networking’ as this is reported every six months.
Performance Status against Indicators
Indicator 2.1: Number of cluster members with improved networking:
A key proxy for increased engagement and advocacy is improved networking (a core driver within the STAR model). Partner networking is mapped using STARNET, an online platform that maps relationships across both demand and supply lines while measuring the increase in number of links (N1) and the complexity of these links (N2, or clique count change). The project measures these bi-annually. In this quarter, the project provides reporting for:
a) Improved networking for the National partners who have been mapping on STARNET since December 2014 (with support from Root Change), and b) The Baseline for Niger Delta partners who mapped for the first time, with support from Root Change in the quarter, and for whom improved networking will be reported in Q4.
Results for the quarter (see details below) show that with regard to the National clusters, the project significantly exceeded its target of 21 organizations – achieving 45 (with 29 organizations demonstrating more advanced improvements (as defined by the STARNET measures). Though the Niger Delta has a target of nine and an actual of zero, this is because this quarter’s effort was focused on developing a baseline. With 53 organizations now mapped in from seven clusters, the project will achieve (and probably exceed) the annual target of 18. Below is a more detailed analysis on ‘Improved Networking’.
For National clusters, the target for Year 3-Quarter II, was to see an additional 21 Cluster Actors show improved networking. Across all eight National advocacy areas, a total of 45 Cluster Actors have shown an increase in NI Level 1 for Quarter II. A total of 29 Cluster Actors have shown an increase in NI Level 2 for Quarter II. We are now tracking a total of 229 Cluster Actors for the National clusters.
Table 1. Overall Network Improvement for National Clusters
Indicator 2.1 – National Clusters
Year 3, Quarter II (Sept 2015-Apr 2016)
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Target Total Change Improvement
NI Level 1 (Total Links) 21 45 NI Level 2 (Clique - 29 Count)
For the Niger Delta, the goal for Year 3-Quarter II was to establish a baseline for networking. Out of the eight Cluster Anchors, all have mapped in the STARNET platform. Seven Anchors (with the exception of Social Action1) mapped within their respective advocacy areas and established a baseline of their Cluster Actors. These seven Anchors identified 53 Cluster Actors, among them 14 Cluster Actors have mapped within STARNET. We will be tracking these actors over the next 6 months to see how their networking improves.
See Annex I and II for a breakdown of new in and out links and the total change in NI Level 1 and NI Level 2 by each Anchor and by each advocacy area for National and Niger Delta.
Additional Findings on Network Improvement for National Clusters Among the clusters at the National level, Accountability in Extractives continues to have the highest NI Level 1 and NI Level 2 improvement. Roughly, 73% of this improvement can be accounted for by CISLAC alone, who has the highest NI Level 1 improvement with 93 new total links found in the area of accountability in extractives this period. Of those new links, 14 were “links-in” or nominations from other actors who see CISLAC as a resource on accountability in extractives. This suggests that CISLAC has not only been actively networking with new actors, but their visibility as a resource hub has increased substantially among other actors in the sector. Additionally, the cluster had the highest change in NI Level 2. This appears to be driven by 12 core actors who account for 64 new cliques within this cluster. This suggests that a few key cluster members have been active in co-collaborating with other members and partners on the issue.
WARD-C, HDI, and HERFON and their respective clusters have shown moderate improvement across both NI Level 1 and NI Level 2, which shows positive progress. CENSOJ and the Open Budgeting for Health (MNCH) Cluster also has seen a moderate improved NI Level 1. The Anchor and the cluster as a whole, however, has seen no improvement for NI Level 2 within the advocacy area. This suggests low collaboration between members, and heavy reliance on the Anchor as a resource on the issue. CENSOJ should focus supporting members to collaborate with each other
1 Social Action had some difficulty mapping. When they map in their advocacy area (Open Budgeting for Government) we will establish a baseline of Cluster Actors for them.
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and exchange information on the issue to increase the flow of communication and ideas. DRAC had some of the lowest improvement in NI Level 1. DRAC had a change of -1 links-out, which suggests that they ended a relationship with a member, and have not created any new relationships over the last 6 months. JONAPWD and the Social Inclusion for Education cluster were found to have the lowest level of improvement for both NI Level 1 and NI Level 2.
Priorities for Q2.
completing the STARNET Baseline mapping in the Niger Delta
Providing ongoing mentoring to all clusters to build on the recommendations agreed following their STAR Mobile mapping as these are key to improving the quantity and quality of ‘improved networking’.
Conducting follow-on mapping for all national an Niger Delta clusters in September
Indicator 2.2: Number of laws, policies, or procedures drafted and proposed by USG-funded CSOs:
The key measure for reforms that promote TAGG in the project is the number of policies, laws and administrative procedures being developed, drafted, proposed, adopted and implemented by partners.
Key activities: The project exceeded its quarterly target under this indicator significantly, recording 14 specific areas where partners were working (as opposed to 5 in the target set). These policy areas included five at national level, one policy at state level and eight in the Niger Delta. This figure will continue to grow because of the ongoing activity reported below which is now disaggregating the work into clear bills and laws, policies, and procedures and the fact that clusters are potentially working on more than one specific area each. We had indicated that this would be the case in the previous quarter (see Challenges under this indicator in Q1).
In order to provide a significantly sharper picture, the project and partners have continued to undertake key activity to move the work under this indicator forward.
The project has produced (with the significant work of technical partner Root Change), using Outcome Harvesting, the interim results and progress made by various partners since the commencement of their work. Working first with two clusters (Women in Agriculture and Women with Disabilities), the project has created a mapping and visualization process for capturing interim results and identifying next step priorities. An example appears below. Building on this, the project team, during
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the Advanced Advocacy and Public Awareness Workshop, rolled this out with all remaining 14 clusters. Each project has developed a full visualization and is using these to build priority actions for the rest of the year on their issue. Project partners will continue to update these, enabling the project to accurately report these during the ALS. The project is refining a Policy Tracker that maps all bills and laws, policies and administrative processes being worked on by partners. This will be bolted onto the Outcome Framework to provide a holistic picture, progress and next steps and will be the principal tracking tool for this indicator until the project ends. This will be developed fully in Q3. A list of the key areas partners are working on is provided below (insert table). The project also utilized the Advanced Advocacy and Public Awareness workshop to support partners to refine their advocacy messages and public awareness messaging as well as refine their Issue Declarations – key documents in honing their targeted achievement of their advocacy objectives.
The summary narrative has highlighted the key achievements for partners and is not repeated here.
Key Challenges.
- The picture regarding all the policies being worked on and the interim outcomes being achieved is being finalized as we speak into the Policy Tracker (which will complement the Strategy/Outcome Framework. A fuller picture will be developed by the end of Q3. - The BMOs (in the Niger Delta) are operating, understandably, at a slower pace and the project will have to support them to drive for specific policy engagement during the remaining two quarters of the year. - The project will conduct a detailed analysis of the exact number and nature of reforms being worked upon by partners by Q4 of FY 2016.
Priorities for Q3
Support to clusters and specifically to the BMOs in the Niger Delta to engage on specific reform agendas
Conclude the development of the policy tracker to record, classify, and track all policy areas being worked on by partners
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Indicator 2.3 Number of CSOs receiving USG Assistance engaged in Advocacy Interventions:
The target for FY 2016 is annual, as all core partners, cluster members, and collaborators will contribute to and participate in advocacy interventions – with a total of 88 organizations involved. No ‘Actual’ to be reported for this quarter.
Priorities for Q3.
Ongoing support to clusters and collaborating groups to implement their advocacy agendas
Support to clusters to identify and bring on board appropriate cluster members and collaborators
Indicator 2.4 Number of Partnership (engagement) Innovations Initiated by Funded CSOs:
This indicator measures progress on innovations that promote engagement and partnership across clusters and with key stakeholders, especially GON stakeholders. The target for the quarter is zero. However, the project undertook a number of activities towards achieving targets for Q3 and Q4 FY 2016.
Key Activities. Building on work from the last quarter, the project undertook the following key activity with regards to this indicator:
The project published the Innovation and Spread the Word Fund (ISWF) APS on 14th March 2016 to the wider CSO public. The project conducted a Bidders conference on 22nd March to provide additional information to intending applicants and published a full schedule of Questions and Answers to all applicants on 31s March 2016. With regards to ongoing work, o The project completed the review of STAR Mobile. During the quarter, using Survey Monkey, the project undertook a rolled-out mini version of STAR Mobile with all national partners during the specific coaching and mentoring sessions with two clusters and at the Advanced Advocacy workshop with the remaining six. This was used to foster discussions within the clusters and the development of action plans to address them. During the upcoming Root Change ‘surge’ activity (Root Change staff Alexis Smart will be in country for three weeks at the beginning of Q3), the project will finalize and routinely roll out the STAR Mobile model, analyzing and reporting progress through the Annual report. o Work on the innovation for online tracking of key education commitments, proposed by the North East Cluster (anchored by CITAD) remains paused. The project has asked the cluster to revisit this concept using the criteria published through the ISWF
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APS and to consider applying for additional funding support through that mechanism – grounding their proposal within a clear ‘governance’ lens. Priorities for Q3.
Evaluate and select appropriate applications Conduct the Innovation Design workshop Identify and commence processes for awards to final selected successful applications Complete STAR Mobile Roll Out review and implement (including in the Niger Delta) 2.2.3 Component 3: Public Awareness
This component focuses on strengthening public awareness, engagement and support by the general public for key issues that anchors/clusters and Niger Delta partners and their collaborators are working on. The key activities and progress made in this regard is reported in more detail below under the key indicators.
It also seeks to strengthen public awareness and engagement more generally on TAGG issues. This latter aspect is delivered through broader enabling environment actions implemented outside of the core project partners, either directly by the project or in collaboration with specific additional partners. The key elements of the broader strategy include three main tracks:
increasing the conversation on social media through engagement with Social Media Week and use of social media channels on an ongoing basis engagement with the Entertainment Industry (Nollywood) through an innovative partnership with Homevida Capacity strengthening and engagement with the broader media sector through workshops and ongoing networking and engagement, and Fostering conversations and discussions on key TAGG issues through the project’s innovative 2.0 Mindset Series events.
Key activities at broader level included:
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Engagement with Social Media Week Lagos 2016 (SMW-Lagos): The project, in partnership with Enough is Enough (EiE) successfully engaged the broader public through its flagship ‘Let’s Talk Governance’ event at SMW-Lagos in February 2016. With a three-pronged event that enabled citizen dialogue, engagement with government and skills building through Master Classes, the project had direct interaction with over 300 persons. On social media, the project increased its reach to the broader public from a year by over 100%,reaching close to 10 million Twitter users through the Twitter handle @GovTalkNG and the hashtag #GovTalkNG, trending for over 6 hours on the Nigeria Twitter scene on the day. The theme was so successful that it was adopted by other events, including a side event run by SMW-Lagos to host the Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Senator Saraki. The project also supported the events closing concert with the theme of Freedom of Speech – especially focused on bringing attention to the controversial so-called ‘Social Media Bill’ which seeks to curtail the rights of citizens in their use of social media as an avenue to provide critical input o government. More details appear below under Indicator 3.2
2015 vs. 2016
Engagement and discussions have commenced with Homevida towards the 2016 Integrity Film Awards to hold in December 2016. The project intends to support a two-track process of supporting young script writers and producers to compete and produce a short movie that highlights TAGG issues positively; and endow a mainstream local film production which best showcases issues of TAGG (using the approach adopted last year). The contract with Homevida will be signed in Q3 and the work will continue through to Q1 FY 2017 under the agreement. More details will be provided in Q3. Building from the launch of the innovative 2.0 Mindset Series event in December 2015, the project has successfully held an additional four events during the quarter under review – in Abuja, Lagos, Owerri and Kano – reaching 431 people (averaging over 100 participants per event) and bringing on board high profile panelists including the Minister of Environment and Char of the House Committee on Civil Society and Donor partners of the National Assembly alongside other prominent activists and practitioners. A synopsis of the outcomes of this will be produced to cover all the evens hosted in FY 2016 in Q1 FY 2017. The project has reported key commitments and outcomes arising from the series in the relevant weekly reports to USAID.
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Performance Status against Indicators
In addition to the activities outlined above in the brooder eco-system, the project has recorded the following successes against its indicators as listed below.
Indicator 3.1: Number of Public Awareness campaigns on key democratic issues:
This indicator refers to the number of discrete campaigns undertaken by partners during the year and is reported annually.
Key Activities: During the quarter, activities continued apace on all the campaigns. The activities carried out indicate that capacity building from the project has influenced and improved the way partners carry out campaigns on their issues. Organizations such as DRAC and JONAPWD has used every 2.0 Mindset Series event to reach out to key stakeholders such as the Hon. Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed, to endorse their campaigns on creating an inclusive enabling environment for PWDs in education and health.
Also during the quarter, and using the Advanced Advocacy and Public Awareness Workshop, the project continued to help partners to refine and segment their public awareness messaging to focus on their three key stakeholder group – the public, influencers, and decision-makers.
Other highlights include: Citizens Market Place at the 2016 SMW YAF, ANEEJ, DRAC, CSJ, HDI, and Lagos WARDC attended the 2016 SMW Lagos using the opportunity to speak on their campaign, with the specific call for support and endorsement. JONAPWD consistently sought opportunities for endorsement on its campaign on inclusive education for PWDs, which it shares on its social media pages. By leveraging on the partnership of the SACE project with other stakeholders, it has successfully expanded its scope of influence. Priorities for Q3
Finalize partnership discussions with Nigeria Integrity Awards (Homevida) in support of one of the project’s broader campaign on TAGG issues with the entertainment industry using the Integrity Film Awards. Continue to provide ongoing coaching ad mentoring support to project partners. Each partner, through the Strategy/Outcome harvesting exercise, the Policy mapping, and the cluster relationship diagnostics provided by STAR Mobile have developed a set of issue-cluster specific actions. Coaching and mentoring will be customized around these findings, outcomes and priorities.
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Indicator 3.2: Number of public discourse on key democratic governance issues supported/facilitated by civil society partners:
This indicator measures the quality of engagement ad discussion on key issues. During the quarter under review, the project recorded a continued expansion in discourse by partners. Against a target of 16 discourses (reflecting a planned discourse per cluster per quarter), the project exceeded this – achieving 23 discourses (representing 143% of target). This significant overachievement reflects the growing capacity of clusters to engage and put increasing pressure on their issues. Partner discourses were 18 during the quarter (representing 112% of target). The additional five discourses were generated by direct project activities (around the 2.0 Mindset Series and Social Media Week Lagos 2016). Given the current trajectory of increased engagement by partners, the project is likely to retain this level of performance for the year.
Key Activities: Highlights for the quarter include:
In the Niger Delta,
The ‘Open Budget of Government Institutions’ Cluster, led Social Action, campaigned for proactive disclosure for state budgets in the Niger Delta. The cluster paid a visit to the Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Bayelsa State Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning on January 15, 2016. As a result of the engagement, the group was given a hard copy of the 2015 budget (hitherto not publicly available), secured a promise to make the 2016 budget available online, and to make copies of the state’s annual budgets available on its official website. They also launched a week-long activity in March, which shared their research findings on the state of government-funded projects across the Niger Delta with the tag-line ‘Open Budget Now”. At the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Civil Society Organization Engagement forum on January 18, 2016, LITE-Africa made a presentation of the findings of the Citizens Report Card (CRC) report during the forum where a copy of the policy briefs on the NDIs was also handed to the NDDC management team. NDDC management promised to act on the report and this advocacy led to the addition of civil society organizations to the constituted joint project monitoring committee, which LITE-Africa, ANEEJ, and Social Action were selected as members. This has placed these three SACE partners on a very good pedestal to advocate for efficient and quality project execution and be in a better position to advise NDDC management on good project conception and execution practices. As a result of youth empowerment cluster’s #10percent4youths campaign in March 2016, which is led by Youth Alive Foundation (YAF), a number of traditional, and government leaders have endorsed the campaign. Endorsers include the Speaker of the House of Assembly Rt. Hon. Barr. Onofiok Luke who promised to sit with his fellow members and look at the bill and its credits, HRH Edidem Nyong Obop Paramount Rulers of Ikono LGA, Hon. Barrister Emmanuel Udosen Chairman of Abak LGA, Hon. Okon Etim Okon ,Caretaker Chairman of Itu LGA and Mr. Eteyen Secretary of Mbo LGA. It is noteworthy to mention that in seeking out unusual alliances and partners, CCIDESSOR held a public discourse with the Anglican Bishop of Egbu and his secretary management members which as result gave CCIDESOR the opportunity
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to make a presentation of their advocacy brief and awareness created at the Owerri province synod of bishops calling on them to support the campaign and speak to their congregation. Nationally,
The Social Accountability in the Northeast cluster (led by CITAD) held six Town Hall Meetings promoting social accountability in the education sector focusing on how citizens can help to reduce mismanagement of the public resources in the sectors. These meetings were held in the six Northeast States (Adamawa, Taraba, Gombe, Bauchi, Borno, and Yobe) from March 28 to 31, 2016. As a result of these meetings, 190 participants expressed commitment to monitor education projects and report their findings to CITAD. The Transparency in the Extractives Sector Cluster led by CISLAC held a public discourse with the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) Leadership on March 29, 2016, which resulted in the group adopting the student outreach campaign on accountability in the extractive Sector which will be implemented across 265 Federal and State Universities in Nigeria. As part of the process for the development of the National Policy Framework on Sexual and Reproductive Health of Women and Girls with Disabilities in Nigeria, the Access to Health for Women With Disabilities (WWD) Cluster led by DRAC organized a 3-day technical working group meeting from March 7-9, 2016 aimed at carrying out a technical review of the draft document and effect necessary improvements before it is finalized. The meeting, which had adequate representation from both government and civil society, produced the draft WWD Sexual Reproductive Health Policy Framework. In addition, the 2.0 Mindset Series provided a veritable space for discourse. The meeting has been able to get key government officials to make commitments in driving transformative reforms in line with projects goals. For example, the Chairman, Kano State House Committee on Education, Hon. Babba Dan’Agundi expressed his commitment to support the passage of a proposed Kano State Disability Bill; and the Federal Minster of the Environment, Amina Mohammed committed to ensuring greater involvement of CSOs including women, youths and people with disabilities in the activities of her Ministry. The rich panel of resources and experience shared at the 2.0 Mindset Series has made this an event looked forward to by civil society groups, the public, and government officials.
Additionally, the project’s Let’s Talk Governance session at the 2016 SMW in Lagos in partnership with Enough is Enough Nigeria, citizens, and government underlined the essential role of social media in governance with emphasis on the need for active and consistent
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engagement in governance by citizens using any social media platform. The project held two panel discussions, two master classes, one citizens’ market place and one freedom of speech concert. The project sessions which was on February 25 and 26 during the week-long event recorded several outcomes one of which was that SMW held over 100 sessions at this year’s edition and the project had the only person with disability (PWD) as a panelist who discussed the effects of inclusion on governance and on social media. Other registered successes include: ranked the highest trending hashtag (#GovTalkNG) for five hours on February 25; over 450 unique physical individuals in attendance; other SMW Lagos sessions leveraged on the project's title, “Let’s Talk Governance” and hashtag #GovTalkNG to get mileage, such as the ‘Governance Day’ session with Senate President Bukola Saraki on February 26, 2016; and much more (http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2016/02/social-media-as-the-ombudsman/). Let’s Talk Governance @SMWLagos provided a platform for government to listen to citizens on how to use technology for governance; reiterated the importance of an uncensored social media; a better understanding of analytic tools and how to increase use and engagement based on data; and a freedom of speech concert which made a bold statement about the power of social media and its critical importance to ensuring Nigerians can express their views in promoting good governance.
The project and its partners also held several Tweet dialogues during the quarter under review. The Project held online discussions during the 2.0 Mindset Series using the hashtag #Mindset2.0. The same goes for the Projects activities at SMWLagos using the hashtag #GovTalkNG. Partners who also used Twitter this quarter around specific themes include HDI on February 19, 2016, with the Hashtag #accessubefund discussing un- accessed federal government matching grant as an impediment to quality basic education across States in Nigeria; WARDC with the Hashtag #WomenLeadAgric Campaign discussed how to ensure gender inclusive agricultural policies on March 29, 2016. As a result of the launch of the “Open Budget Week”, Social Action opened a twitter account @openbudgetnow and tweeted from the handle all through the week from March 28 to April 2, 2016 using #openbudgetnow.
Other forms of discourse took place using the media in the form of media briefing. Partners who held media briefing this quarter include CENSOJ on the 2016 Federal Budget Allocation to Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) on March 2, 2016: CITAD expressed its disappointment on the comatose nature of the Presidential Initiative in Northeast (PINE) in developing the Northeast on March 2, 2016. This elicited a response from the Vice Chairman, Tijjani Tumsa, affirming that PINE will increase all efforts to ensure the reconstruction of the region is expedited. CITAD and its cluster also held a press conference on the declaration of State of Emergency in the Education Sector of Bauchi State on March 18, 2016, commending the Bauchi state government for the declaration of a state of emergency on the education in the state while calling on other state governments to follow suit in the region.
Priorities for Q2.
Continued support to partners as they work to increase dialogues towards achieving their advocacy objectives Plan towards the Niger Delta Civic Engagement Forum in Benin Plan towards partners Civic Dialogue Issue Learning Forum
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Indicator 3.3: Number of media transactions to promote transparency, accountability, and good governance initiatives:
Media transactions are activities taken by partners on the project aimed at promoting TAGG reported in the media. The key media covered by this include traditional media made up of newspapers and radio, new media made up of online news sites and social media.
Following the media training organized by the Project for its partners in December 2015, partners were advised to create partnerships and synergy between their project and media houses. This quarter saw a couple of partners taking the initiative and creating alliances with media houses. Partners such as JONAPWD and Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and Radio Nigeria, CCIDESOR and Hartland FM Owerri and the Nigeria Union of Journalists Owerri Chapter, and UPFFA and Delta broadcasting service Warri.
As a result, during the quarter, the project significantly exceeded its target of 40 media transactions. Across the project, 113 media transactions were recorded (40 nationally and 40 in the Niger Delta, with an additional 33 generated from the project activities of the 2.0 Mindset Series and Social Media Week Lagos). Online transactions (38) were the highest followed by Newspaper (31) and Radio (25).
Key Activities: During the quarter, the project and its partners recorded 113 media transactions with 80 transactions from that number on partner’s activities. Partners featured during this quarter include CITAD, DRAC, HDI, WARDC, JONAPWD, CISLAC and CENSOJ for national partners, and YAF and CCIDESOR for the Niger Delta. The three highest grossing sources were SMW Lagos; the 2.0 Mindset Series events; and CCIDESSOR’s activities in the Niger Delta which singularly attracted 22 newspaper reports, three radio transactions and a further 2 online media reports.
Other highlights (segmented by media type) include:
Newspaper: In Imo State, CCIDESOR used several newspaper houses to share information with calls on the government to complete abandoned projects and request to communities to monitor and report abandoned projects by the government. During the quarter, CCIDESOR project was extensively reported 22 times in different national and statewide newspapers calling on the government to be accountable to the citizens of Imo State. JONAPWD, CITAD, CENSOJ and CISLAC issued five press releases on their causes within this quarter, which were covered in the Newspapers. JONAPWD issued a press release on February 23, 2016, commending President Buhari for appointing a visually impaired cluster member, Dr. Ankeli, as his Special Assistant on issues for PWDs as a step in promoting inclusive governance. They also called for Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities in 2016 Budget in a separate press release. Also in relation to the budget, CENSOJ issued a statement calling on the executive arm of government to ensure that future health budgets should be backed by Medium Term Sector Strategy (MTSS) contained in high-level national policy documents in MNCH as anticipated in the Fiscal Responsibility Act on March 7, 2016. CISLAC called for the enactment of the Petroleum Industrial Bill
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on March 24 in its press release while CITAD, on the other hand, called on the Northern Governors Forum on March 2, 2016, to prioritize education issues in its partnership with the Islamic Development Bank to address issues facing the North East. All these were covered in various newspapers found. Online News Sites: Due to the growth of technology, some media houses now have online news portals that disseminate information. Sometimes, partners stories can be featured on both online and offline platforms for the media house. Some news sites are strictly online and stories related to partner’s interventions are reported on these platforms such as CITADs press release on the slow development of the Northeast region. http://newsdiaryonline.com/csos-express-worry-over-delay-in-northeasts-reconstruction/ and others from CCIDESOR, CENSOJ, CISLAC and JONAPWD.
Social Media: The project and partners used social media extensively especially Twitter this quarter to influence project goals as shown in indicator 3.2. Find below the curated table on the Projects and partners social media engagement this quarter.
Project Accumulated Exposure on Twitter and Facebook for Q2 2016 Twitter Facebook You Tube Project Name Campaign Reach Reach Exposure Views (Pre/Post) 2.0 Mindset Series: 199,124 366,776 (201 + 441) Lagos#Mindset2.0 642 2.0 Mindset Series: 21,182 289,736 (286 + 229) Owerri 515 SACE 2.0 Mindset Series: 92,801 881,664 (966 +155) Abuja #Mindset2.0 1121 2.0 Mindset Series: 221.442 720,117 (196 + 217) Kano #Mindset2.0 413 SMW Lagos 2016 1,789,637 9,746,858 10,526 2294 ‘Let’s Talk reached SACE & EiE Nigeria Governance’ and 821 #GovTalkNG views #MNCH 837,877 5,861,041 CENSOJ #MNCH2016Budge 77,094 4,364,509 t #WomenLeadAgric 176,392 1,303,717 WARDC
#accessubefund 2,367,443 3,704,126 HDI
YAF 632 TOTAL Q2 2016 5,561,771 27,238,544 13,217 1453 Total Q1 + Q2 6,525,297 39,341,804 24,985 2127
The project’s ‘Let’s Talk Governance’ Facebook and Twitter page following is also organically steadily increasing. The Twitter page has grown from 299 to 549 followers and Facebook has moved from 1670 to 1766 likes between Q1 and Q2 2016.
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Partners such as WARDC, CENSOJ, and HDI, also use social media especially twitter in supporting their campaigns and have developed hashtags with a specific call to action on policy reforms on their issues. Such hashtags are used to curate information and proffer recommendation on what government can do in addressing their issues.
Radio/TV: Partners used radio interviews, news report, and jingles to drive public awareness this quarter. Strategically some partners have created alliances with radio houses to air their issues. CCIDESOR has entered a partnership with Hartland radio Station in Imo State on monitoring abandoned projects, JONAPWD with Radio Nigeria Abuja on Inclusive Education and, UPFFA with DBS on implementing effective agriculture policies in Delta State, WARDC with promoting an enabling gender friendly agriculture policy on Gold FM Osun State. All three have endorsed the respective partner’s project and provided airtime for information dissemination. For instance, in commemorating International Women’s Day on March 8, 2016, WARDC held a radio program on Gold FM in Osun on the role, contribution, and challenges of smallholder women farmers to Agriculture.
Other partners who have been invited by radio stations to speak on the issues this quarter include HDI and DRAC. HDI used their radio airtime on EKO FM Lagos, Dream FM Enugu and Rahma Radio, Kano, to promote accountability for quality and accessible primary and junior secondary education at the local government level in Nigeria relative to the Universal Basic Education (UBE) policy framework. DRAC was invited on Wazobia 99.5 F.M, on March 30, 2016, to discuss issues relating to access to health for women and girls with disabilities in Nigeria. YAF continues to run its radio flagship 30 minutes radio program, YouthHQ on Planet FM while NCDF launched its radio drama series called “Izon Keme (The Peace Maker’s) Compound” on Glory FM 97.1 on January 30, 2016, which has aired 8 times since inception.
Priorities for Q3.
• Ongoing support to partners as they grow their media presence across the different mediums they are employing (print, electronic, social, traditional) Indicator 3.4: Number of Public Awareness innovations initiated by funded CSOs:
The results and targets for this indicator are driven by the initiation of the Innovation and Spread the Word Fund (ISWF) APS mechanism. In the current quarter, the project does not have any targets. However, a number of key activities were undertaken towards achieving targets for Q3 and Q4.
The project undertook two activities towards achieving the indicators here as well as supported one partner-led activity. Regarding the ISWF APS mechanism, the project:
Published the Innovation and Spread the Word Fund (ISWF) APS on 14th March 2016 to the wider CSO public. Conducted a Bidders conference on 22nd March to provide additional information to intending applicants and published a full schedule of Questions and Answers to all applicants on 31s March 2016. In addition, the project:
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Supported CISLAC to move forward with its innovative approach to Public Awareness utilizing students from across the 265 universities in the country to drive the extractives campaign. By supporting CISLAC and the cluster to engage with NANS (already reported above), the project was able to steer the cluster towards a sustainable mechanism for the campaign The project reviewed the idea of a ‘TAGG Ambassador’ and has decided to drop this dimension of is public awareness work. Rather than seek to recruit a general TAGG Ambassador, the project has decided to support relevant clusters to solicit the support of issue-specific celebrity ambassadors. This will be deepened in FY 2017. Priorities for Q3: • Identify, select and execute ISWF Projects
2.2.4 Component 4: Niger Delta
Component 4 builds on the approach set out in the first three components but with a specific focus on CSOs in the Niger Delta and with a view toward influencing policy in a way that promotes inclusive economic growth in the region.
Performance Status against Indicators
Indicator 4.1: Number of CSOs showing net change:
This indicator measures the progress of national partner organizations (anchors and cluster members) towards gaining the capacity to catalyze reform on their issues. Progress is measured against performance on their issues using the STAR Index approach and STARNET. During Q2, the project implemented the decision to roll out STARNET to the Niger Delta, generating a baseline of data for all core partners (reported under 2.1 above). The project has also taken the decision to treat the Niger Delta collaborators as ‘full clusters’ rolling out the same set of STAR Drivers and Index as well as the Survey Monkey driven STAR Mobile into the Niger Delta to support cluster feedback. Initial indications are that this has been well accepted, increased the cohesion with the collaborators and shifted them into a full-fledged ‘collective impact’ cluster model.
As with Indicator 1.1, this indicator is measured annually during Q4 of the respective year. Therefore, no result is expected for this quarter. However, the project did undertake a number of activities with Niger Delta partners that will contribute to greater accuracy of results under this indicator.
Key activities: Even though reporting will not take place until Q4, the project has continued to undertake activities that will contribute to the results to be reported. For example,
Working with the specific results from the Outcome Harvesting processes, the project has engaged all eight clusters in extensive discussions about progress and worked with them to refine strategies and priorities during the Coaching and Mentoring sessions and at the Advanced Advocacy Workshop (see reporting on these under 1.2 above) in order to improve the results.
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The project has formally introduced the STAR Mobile process and cluster model to Niger Delta partners. The project facilitated discussions around elements of the Drivers (with a special focus on Cluster relations) using the STAR Mobile Survey Monkey tool to generate discussions and action points to help the anchor and cluster members to refine roles, responsibilities and begin the process of inter-cluster feedback which is an essential part of the process of net change. In addition, as reported under 2.2 above, the project has administered the first level data collection into STARNET for all Niger Delta clusters. The analysis of the results of this in Q4 (the first progress point check-in for Niger Delta partners) will contribute to the assessment of Net Change for these partners. Key Challenges.
In FY 2016, there has been turnover in cluster membership, which has hampered continuity and slowed down some cluster engagement as new members are brought up to speed. The project has supported anchors and new cluster members to quickly gain understanding and internalize capacity strengthening inputs delivered in FY 2014 and FY 2015. Priorities for Q3.
Support individual clusters building on the Outcome Harvesting results for each cluster to be better able to map interim outcomes and identify priorities for action until the end of FY 2016. Continue to refine the methodological approach to STAR process in light of takeaways from FY 2015 for the Annual Learning Summit (ALS) processes. Support ND partners to conclude the STARNET survey and build capacity in understanding the STAR drivers
Indicator 4.2 Number of unique individuals (CSO members) trained in unique subjects:
This indicator measures the numbers of unique people trained, coached and mentored in unique capacity areas during the quarter. As indicated earlier, the interventions for FY 2016 are derived from progress made in the previous year and priorities to increase impact especially in the areas of advocacy and public awareness. The project slightly under-achieved its target for the quarter – reaching 163 unique individuals (as opposed to 200 projected in the PMP). This represents 81% of the quarter target. However, it should be recalled that the project significantly exceeded the Q1 target. Overall, for the half-year period, the project has achieved 105% of its target (having reached 577 unique individuals as opposed to 550 indicted in the PMP).
In the current quarter, the result was achieved through two project-led events and six events delivered by NCDF in Bayelsa state.
Key Activities. Project activities include the following:
The Planning Skills building workshop for BMOs: Following the decision in December to extend the BMO contracts to the end of December 2016, the
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project undertook additional skills building for the BMOs to develop their extended plans The SACE Transparency, Accountability and Good Governance Workshop – which aimed to embed principles and practice across clusters. This event was held in Owerri In addition to these project-led activities, Nembe City Development Foundation undertook capacity-building activities with their collaboration partners (a total of six events across a number of locations) to provide step down training for community peace peer champions and to acquaint users with the SMS reporting platform reported above. Details of these are set out in the summary table below.
ANALYSIS OF SACE TRAINING PROGRAMS IN Q2 2016 – NIGER DELTA
Priorities for Q3
Advanced Advocacy and Public Awareness Workshop Innovation Design Workshop for relevant partners applying successfully under the ISWF APS M&E/Knowledge sharing workshop Support to partner-initiated capacity development activities.
Indicator 4.3: Number of Public Awareness Campaigns on Inclusive Economic reform in the Niger Delta:
This indicator reflects the campaigns, which each cluster is carrying out in the Niger Delta. The indicator is measured annually but activity on campaigns is ongoing.
Key Activities. A number of the key campaigns have been mentioned in the narrative above. However, it is worth highlighting the following key ones:
SDIC stepped up its campaign on “Open Budget Now” across a number of states in the Niger Delta (see 3.2 above)
Other key campaigns – that of YAF and CCIDESSOR gained significant traction and momentum as has already been reported above with the YAF campaign moving to the legislative stage and CCIDESSOR achieving a number of results in terms of abandoned projects being completed. LITE-Africa and ANEEJ built on their campaign momentum to secure places on the NDDC Joint Monitoring Committee.
NCDF also fully launched its SMS reporting platform, receiving engagement across 5 states from 65 independent reports and firmly establishing its Central Peace working Group.
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Though the BMOs are yet to fully kick-start their campaigns – especially with relevant GON stakeholders – they have now completed their research, developed their policy briefs and are set to engage in Q3 fully. TABLE 2(A): NIGER DELTA TRAINING PROGRAMS, QUARTER 2 (Jan-March) 2016 Event Date Venue M F Total PWD Youth Adult SACE Niger Delta Program SACE BMOs Work Planning Workshop January 20-21, 2016 Port Harcourt 14 16 30 0 6 24 TAGG Workshop February 16-18, 2016 Owerri 24 19 43 1 26 17 SACE Trainning Total 38 35 73 1 32 41 Niger Delta Partners' Training NCDF Community Peace Champions Workshop March 10-11, 2016 Yenagoa 14 8 22 4 7 15 NCDF (Step down) Community Peace Champions March 15, 2016 Nembe 9 5 14 0 6 8 NCDF (Step down) Community Peace Champions March 16, 2016 Agbobiri 8 2 10 0 5 5 NCDF (Step down) Community Peace Champions March 23, 2016 Letugbene 11 4 15 1 8 7 NCDF (Step down) Community Peace Champions March 24, 2016 Primary School Hall 9 5 14 0 7 7 NCDF (Step down) Community Peace Champions March 25, 2016 Ekeni 12 3 15 0 4 11 Partner Training Total 63 27 90 5 37 53 TOTAL, SACE + Partners' Training 101 62 163 6 69 94
Priorities for Q3.
Full-fledged engagement by BMOs around their campaign priorities Cataloguing Campaign demands into the Advocacy Tracker Ongoing campaign support for partners 2.3 Monitoring and Evaluation
During the reporting period, the key achievements for monitoring and evaluation were:
Finalization and submission of the revised PMP and completion of the MEMS II PRS data sheets as per requirements. This report now fully adopts the revised PMP which was submitted following details discussions with USAID and MEMS II ahead of the close out. Further refinements to the Outcome Harvesting Framework, leading to the development of a clear framework that was tested initially with two national clusters and subsequently has been rolled out to all clusters, nationally and in the Niger Delta. Further work on the Policy Tracker through the identification of key laws, policies and procedures, which partners are working on. During Q3, this will be integrated into a framework that captures progress so that the project has a full understanding of the progress against the range of policies being worked on by partners. Analysis from the STAR Mobile Survey Monkeys to commence the process of STAR Mobile rollout. Full implementation of the project Management Information System (MIS). The project is finalizing full data transfer into the system and will complete staff training in early Q3.
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Ongoing partner monitoring visits and the setup of the six-monthly partner Health Check system to provide mentoring support and compliance monitoring. These will be evolved, from Q3, into the Cluster Coaching and Mentoring visits – involving all cluster members (rather than the current model, which provides support only to anchors). This has become necessary in order to ensure the full cluster builds the momentum to achieve cluster goals. 3. INTEGRATION OF CROSSCUTTING ISSUES
3.1 Gender Equality and Female Empowerment
The project continues to address issues of Gender, Social Inclusion and Women Empowerment in the work and performance on this cross cutting issues shows improvements in the quarter under review. Key highlights for the quarter include:
24 new organizations of marginalized groups brought on board through the activities of the cluster members. These were women’s organizations (14); organizations of persons with disabilities (3) and youth organizations (7) The project also procured the services of a Gender Specialist and a Disability Specialist in order to carry forward the work identified from the audits and training in Q1. This work will now be conducted in August 2016. The project had a Person with Disability as a panelist during the Kano 2.0 Mindset Series event, which attracted high participation of persons with disability at the event and promises of action on a Disability Bill for Kano State. The project also managed to record the participation of 238 females being recipients of its training and capacity building activities (representing 40% of all participants. Below is the graphical presentation of the data from capacity building activities. The project also produced its own staffing Diversity report during Q2, which indicated growth in women in more senior positions in the organization in 2016 as compared with 2015.
Chart of Trainings (National + Niger Delta) for FY3 Half Year Disaggregated by Gender
Female, 520, 40% Male, 770, 60%
Male Female
Challenges
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- Increasing the participation of PWDs in the Niger Delta remains a challenge, which the project will explore strategies to address in Q3 and Q4. - The postponement of follow on training and support on Gender and Social Inclusion to August will affect the overall performance in this area in FY 2016 Priorities for Q3
The project will maintain its current efforts and explore ways of increasing the participation of PWDs in the project, especially in the Niger Delta. 3.2 Enabling Environment
During the quarter under review, the project continued with its enabling environment activities – which are aimed at supporting, protecting, and expanding the wider civil society space so that the work of our direct partners can create a multiplier effect and be sustained.
Broadly, the overall context has been challenging during the quarter:
The ongoing anti-corruption campaign of government continues to take root, with some high profile trials commencing, notably that of the Senate President. This is welcome but has none-the-less polarized the political space with claims and counter-claims of witch hunting and bias. This implies there is need for great sensitivity while continuing with advocacy and actions that will drive reforms that improve transparency, accountability and good governance. The economy continues to be shaky – a falling exchange rate and the maintenance of dual rates continues to plague the Naira, resulting in a higher inflation rate. This has also affected the subsidy of oil products, resulting in massive queues and fuel shortages reaching crisis point in the quarter. Overall, growth has been reforecast down by the IMF to under 3%. With the budget not signed off during the quarter and speculation on sources of funding to finance it, the overall economic activity has chugged to a near-halt. The government has struggled to communicate its overall strategic thrust clearly and effectively, creating tensions and an atmosphere of speculation and rumor. Hopefully, with better communication and a signed-off budget, the situation will pick up in the coming quarters. The social space remains tense. Boko Haram, actions by Niger Delta groups attacking pipelines, the ongoing Biafra unrest (with IPOB at the center) and the spate of killings and counter killings involving local communities and cattle herders have combined to make the country restive. These issues continue to maintain headline positions. In the Niger Delta, there was a smooth re-run in Akwa Ibom state and a stable election process in Bayelsa state. However, Rivers State remains tense and volatile (the project had to take special measures around travel to ensure staff safety).
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That notwithstanding, the government have moved ahead with reforms, notably in the oil sector; the campaign on anti-corruption, and the recent sign off of the budget – these point to a more optimistic period ahead. The president has also engaged in a vast number of trips internationally to create the political good will to enable the government to function as well as to attract foreign investment.
In this broader context, the project has carried out some specific interventions worthy of mention:
The project supported, through its engagement with Social Media Week, partners and broader CSOs to engage with the Frivolous Petitions Bill (otherwise known as the ‘Social Media Bill’) with a view to ensuring that sections of it, which seek to curtail citizen’s rights to engage, are adequately addressed. The project also publicized and encouraged partners to engage through the Public Hearing on the bill held on 7th March 2016. The bill has not proceeded past the second hearing and the project maintains a watching brief in collaboration with partners to ensure that key positions from civil society are reflected if the bill moves forward to the next stage. Project partners engaged significantly with the budget debate process during the quarter under review. CENSOJ participated extensively in this debate and received a high level of publicity for this. We have continued to encourage other project partners to engage with the window of opportunity it presented. A number of our partners attended the public hearings and contributed. Project partners working on the extractives have been involved heavily in conversations around the ongoing Oil sector reforms, including the appointment of CISLAC’s Kola Banwo as CSO representative on the NEITI Board The project is at advanced stages in agreeing the work with Homevida for 2016, which seeks to highlight issues of transparency and accountability in the entertainment sector by supporting young scriptwriters and the Integrity Film Awards. The project’s innovative flagship 2.0 Mindset Series events have provided a new and exciting avenue for citizens to engage lawmakers and government personnel while learning effective skills for advocacy.
3.3 Youth Development
During the quarter, the project’s work on youth grew – in large amount due to the engagement of young people through Social Media week but also because clusters are increasingly reaching out to more youth groups. Highlights include:
growth in numbers of youth benefiting from capacity building activities by 11% to 50.25% for the quarter Seven new organizations of youth were introduced to project activities through the work of clusters
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Nationally, CISLAC’s discussion with NANS around Extractives campaigning is set to see youth participation on their cluster issue sky-rocket over the coming year Niger Delta partners YAF and NCDF continue with their heavy focus on youth for their campaigns around young people. The project’s ability to engage younger people continues to be strong.
Chart of Trainings (National + Niger Delta) for FY3 Half Year Disaggregated by Age
Youth, 573, Adult, 719, 44% 56%
Youth Adult
3.4 Sustainability Mechanisms
The key dimensions on sustainability relate to:
Building on the evidence of greater cluster working towards achieving collective impact, the project has deepened and strengthened this in the quarter under review by extending the full cluster model to all Niger Delta partners as well as conducting detailed cluster dynamics conversations with all clusters using the results from the STAR Mobile survey monkey to facilitate greater collaboration for results. During the quarter the project ran five 2.0 Mindset Series events which aim to broaden understanding of the project’s collective impact model. The events share skills and competencies with a wider public that will ensure sustained effective advocacy once the project is completed. The project finalized sub-granting processes for anchors. This is an important strand in building strong and capable organizations who can both manage resources themselves and who can gradually begin to provide sub-grants to other CSO partners. The project will provide training in April to roll these out to select partners and support them on an ongoing basis thereafter to develop strong capabilities in this area. Our continued use of local expertise is also building sustainability. During the quarter, the project (with support from Root Change) provided extensive capacity building and hands-on learning for project team members 3.5 Policy and Governance Support
During the quarter, the continued to build strong traction towards policy engagement as evidenced in the report of work across all the project components. The project itself has
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maintained a high level of direct engagement, facilitating connections between key GON stakeholders and our partners. Examples of this include the project’s participation at various roundtable meetings – public hearings on the budget, meetings with the Senate and House committees on civil society, and the engagement with law-makers and GON personnel through the 2.0 Mindset series events, with headline panelists including the Minister of Environment, the Chair of the House Committee on Civil Society, the Chair of the Kano State Education Committee, Special Advisor to the Kano State Governor on Civil Society, and the Speaker of the State House of Assembly in Akwa Ibom state. 3.6 Local Capacity Development
The project focused appropriately on this, reaching 595 unique individuals during the quarter. This was achieved through 17 activities including nine conducted by partners (see capacity building sections under 1.2 and 4.2 above). The four 2.0 Mindset Series events also reached 413 persons and had strong elements of capacity building (though we do not directly count attendance at these events under capacity building).
The project also invested in building staff capacity, especially program staff capacity with a focus on Outcome Harvesting and Coaching and Mentoring skills. With this, the project was able to deliver most of its activities directly, only hiring one STC Governance specialist during the quarter. The project also negotiated for a ‘surge’ from Root Change to support local staff capacity to do more analytical work, which will be implemented through April, and May (Q3). 3.7 Conflict Mitigation
During the quarter under review, the project continued to mainstream conflict mitigation, building on the raining from the previous quarter. No partners reported any conflict that affected their work during the quarter.
The key issues reflected earlier in the political economy context section of the report did not affect the project or its partners directly. Our core ‘Peace’ partner group, led by NCDF in the Niger Delta, reported progress on conflict prevention and greater collaboration across partners (see relevant section above) as well as conducted extensive peace building and conflict prevention training, reaching 63 participants across 5 LGAs in Bayelsa State. 4. STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATION AND INVOLVEMENT
Ongoing engagement with key stakeholders across Civil Society, the Government of Nigeria, USAID and PIND continued apace during the quarter under review
Concerning Civil Society, the project used Social Media Week to reach vast numbers of individuals and organizations as well as working with two non-core partners – EiE on SWM and Homevida.
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The project engaged a number of GON stakeholders, especially though our 2.0 Mindset Series (see reports above) but also through supporting greater partner engagement with key relevant MDAs nationally and in the Niger Delta.
The project continues to experience a positive relationship with USAID with the effective participation of the COR in project activities. During the quarter, the project hosted a USAID visit to partners in Lagos (WARD-C and HDI) led by the Deputy Head of Mission (Aler Grubbs) and involving the Head of PDG (Dr. Blair King) and the COR (Augusta Akparanta-Emenogu). These persons also attended and participated in Social Media Week. There was also USAID Nigeria partner visit to WARDC good participation by USAID in the 2.0 Mindset Series events in Abuja. The project team had routine and successful meetings with the COR. Relations with the Contracts department continue to be cordial and productive.
The project’s relationship with PIND remains strong. Relevant meetings, lesson-learning opportunities, evaluation, draw down (on the in-kind budget) and M&E collaboration were all highlights of a successful quarter of relationship with PIND.
The project also engaged with MEMS II, taking feedback on the revised PMP and incorporating this before submission. 5. MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES
5.1 Grants and Strategic Activities Fund (SAF) Administration
During the quarter under review, grants to partners witnessed a marked uptick in disbursements as organizations returned from the Christmas/New Year’s holiday period in early January and began ramping up their activities for the year. Additionally, the project and grantees concluded nearly all budget negotiations and obligation increases for grantees’ annual budget realignments following partner work planning in the latter part of Q1, which contributed to above average, though expected, grantee spending this quarter. In light of the coming sustained surge in grants administration work, including the ISWF APS, the second round of Niger Delta grants, and expansion of the sponsorship of the Homevida awards, the project will be recruiting for the position of grants assistant, which has remained vacant since the previous incumbent was promoted to grants officer.
Administrative activities from this quarter include:
The project remains within projections of grant disbursements, funding $283,545.36 in programming across all 16 core partners nationally and in the Niger Delta. This figure also includes disbursements to Enough is Enough (EiE),
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a non-core partner supported by the project to organize the featured civil society space sponsored by the project at Social Media Week Lagos. Agreement modifications to both realign core grantees’ budgets following their annual work planning process and increase obligations for the upcoming year concluded for nearly all grantees. Outstanding modifications include: o CCIDESOR – In the final stages of modification, submitted work plan required more intensive review with project program team. o CITAD – In the final stages of modification, submitted work plan required more intensive review with project program team. o HERFON – Organization turnover at the executive director level has caused delays in execution of completed modification. o SDIC - In the final stages of modification, submitted budget required more intensive review with project program team in light of the organization’s below-average burn rate. With the exception of CCIDESOR, the partners noted above continue to operate on current obligations. All are expected to execute their modifications in early Q3.
Grant Follow Ons: The project expects ESCFAL and UPPFA to execute follow- on agreements in mid Q3, after obtaining USAID approval. This follows increased capacity building training with the BMOs to strengthen their skills in assembling work plans and programming budgets. The ISWF APS was launched in late Q2, and a well-attended bidders’ conference held on March 23 to familiarize potential applicants with the project’s goals under the APS and how to apply for innovation funding. The first round of applications will be evaluated by the project in the upcoming quarter with successful applicants notified by late Q3 following the Innovation Design Workshop for shortlisted candidates. Preparation for sub-granting was concluded with the sign-off of the sub-grants manual and the development of training materials for its passed introduction with four national partners. Training will be conducted in April 2016. 5.2 Communications
The project has already provided extensive reporting on outward facing communications and public awareness under Component III above. In addition to this, the project achieved a number of results:
Successfully submitted Weekly reports for the period under review Maintained the initiative social media sites – Let’s Talk Governance (Facebook) and GovtalkNG (Twitter) Developed a short video on the activities of Social Media Week Lagos
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The project had to postpone the production of the Newsletter until Q3 in order that it can give a better sense of ‘progress’ which came only out of Q2 work. Work on the website has been concluded and the project awaits USAID approval. 5.3 Human Resources
Key Personnel. This quarter saw the departure of Finance and Administration Manager Jean-Jacques Badiane from the project. Mr. Badiane joined the Foreign Service with USAID and was immediately replaced by Chemonics home office project management associate Oscar Jacob, who provided coverage until the fielding of Mr. Badiane’s permanent replacement, Joseph Urban on March 8. During this reporting period, Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor Theresa Ochu also assumed her role as the project’s director of M&E and gender focal point.
Long-term staff. The project welcomed Adewale Adetoro as the project’s new grants officer, following the departure of Gloria Adeoye in late Q1. In addition, the project received disappointing news with the withdrawal of the CISA approved recruit for personal reasons. The project will review and take a decision on managing this and communicate with USAID accordingly.
Delta Program Officer Rosemary Lawson went on maternity leave toward the end of the quarter and is scheduled to return in June 2016. The project has engaged a consultant to assist the Delta advisor until Ms. Lawson’s return to the office in Port Harcourt.
Salary negotiations were finalized with the successful CSO institutional strengthening advisor candidate in mid-Q2; however, the candidate ultimately declined to join the project at the conclusion of her notice period with her current employer, whose competing counteroffer the candidate ultimately accepted. The project is reassessing the position in light of activity rescheduling due to ongoing budget obligation considerations with USAID, and will discuss the way forward with the Mission during Q3.
Short-term technical assistance (STTA). The project used strategic STTA throughout the quarter to augment or temporarily cover program staff skill sets, thereby enabling the project to meet and exceed targets for the quarter.
Senior Transparency, Accountability, and Good Governance Specialist – Ogaga Ifowodo
Delta Program Officer – Morounmubo Humble-Okere
Photographer - Nguher Zaki 5.4 Security
The overall security situation remains problematic. After an initial lull in operations, Boko Haram has continued to extend its terrorist activities in the North East. The Niger Delta has witnessed a growth in unrest, with pipeline vandalism at a three-year high in the quarter under review. The clashes between sedentary communities and nomadic herdsmen have witnessed a sharp rise with killings on the increase across all of the country during the quarter. The unrest and agitation for Biafra has continued unabated
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with reported killings as well. Finally, in pockets like Rivers state, electoral violence has continued in the re-run processes.
The project has not been directly impacted by these trends. During the quarter, the project delayed trips in the Niger Delta to manage any potential issues in the context of electoral violence and arising from Biafra protests. In the North, we have continued to ask our partners working to maintain vigilance and have conducted careful security screening for partner activity taking place in known locations where there could be collateral impact. However, we are concerned that our initiatives in the North East will. 5.5 Finance
Project spending by line item and component is laid out in the table below with the major line item spending for Q2. During this reporting period, project activity costs were mainly incurred through project partner grant disbursements and capacity-building activities.
The project slightly exceed its projected Q2 budget largely due to training costs and grants disbursements.
Training. A faster-than-expected resumption of SACE and partner activities following the end-of-year holidays resulted in strong capacity-building efforts in Q3. Chemonics was able to deliver a large quantity of high-quality capacity-building activities, while spending well slightly less than the anticipated Salaries expenditures. This represents strong value-for-money for the US taxpayers.
Grants. Grants disbursements continue to be the largest line item this quarter and the dip in grants disbursements shown in Q1 has been made up for in Q2, as grantee activities have sped up following end-of-year holidays. The project will continue to see a steady increase in grants disbursements beginning in Q3 when the project starts making awards under the ISWF APS.
Budget Line Item FY2016 Q1
Salaries 161266 156417 Fringe 92731 107338 Travel and Transport 14165 21040 Allowances 56997 83540 Other Direct Costs 126946 43708 Equipment, Vehicles, and Freight 750 0 Training 62500 152947 Subcontractors 54038 30592 Grants 216875 283545 Total[1] $867,518[2] 879127
1[1] This total is not reflective of associated indirect cost rates not subject to public disclosure.
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1[2] Refer to Year 3 work plan, page 10. This total also includes the SAF budget of $81,250.
6. LESSONS LEARNED AND IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES
In terms of key emerging lessons, we would like to highlight the following:
Outcome Harvesting has become a powerful tool for mapping Interim Outcomes and planning priorities: During the quarter, and building from Year 1 results, the project has developed a framework for Outcome Harvesting for the project that is proving to be a valuable tool to enable clusters map their progress and define next step priorities. This tool will be increasingly used (alongside the Policy Outcome Tracker being developed) to support and facilitate partners towards their results. National Partner Outcome Harvesting The need to increase ‘cluster-by- Framework cluster’ coaching and mentoring: The results achieved through the cluster coaching approach trialed with Root Change in March have taught us the value of beginning to focus more heavily on a cluster-by- cluster approach between now and the end of the project. Therefore, the project will work in Q3 (with support from Root Change) to refine a framework/model for this and implement this as a more central plank as we move into Year 4. This will enable us support the grantees towards achieving their project-life goals. While the project will still undertake broader generic capacity building, encourage exchange, and cross learning, this will be complemented with a stronger focus on what each cluster is working to achieve, using the Outcome Harvesting Tool and the Policy Tracker to facilitate deeper conversations that enhance collective action and impact as well as drive clusters towards their specific results.
Niger Delta partners move to full cluster model: In reviewing the results from the Niger Delta, convinced that the ‘collective impact’ approach of clusters is an important element to achieve life-project outcomes, the project moved the Niger Delta partners to a full cluster model. This entailed the roll out of the full seven drivers in the Niger Delta, STARNET mapping and the introduction of the STAR Mobile approach. These actions have strengthened collaboration significantly and increased coherence, cohesion, and a more focused approach towards the achievement of their objectives. This will be deepened over the coming quarters.
Reformulating STAR Mobile: Following on from the STAR Mobile pilot work (which aimed to use mobile phones to administer routine surveys that would increase
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coherence and feedback in clusters) and the adaptation of this to use survey monkey as the key mechanism, the project has decided that survey monkey works best and is easiest for all clusters nationally and in the Niger Delta to administer and interpret. The project is therefore proposing to replace the STAR Mobile idea with a survey monkey (and subsequently rename the tool) while retaining he key purpose of fostering conversations around cluster performance, providing feedback to anchors and increasing coherence and cohesion.
With regards to challenges,
Gender and Social Inclusion will need a push in Q3: Following the decision to postpone the follow-on Gender and Social Inclusion work arising from the work conducted and reported in Q1, the analysis of Q2 results implies that the project needs to focus on this in Q3 and Q4 in order to ensure we achieve intended outcomes.
Project Ambassador Program: The project has decided that the idea of a dedicated TAGG Ambassador should be discontinued. Our view is to support partners to identify local and relevant ambassadors on their issues and that having a broader TAGG Ambassador would confuse issues while generating significant work and resources that may not yield value. On a case-by-case basis, the project will leverage key celebrities to emphasize points and provide public campaign messages without investing in a project Ambassador.
Project Website: The project has developed a website for approval and continues to advocate for this o be approved as we move into the lesson-learning and sharing phase and would welcome a further discussion on sustainability issues to find an appropriate solution. 7. PLANNED ACTIVITIES FOR Q3 FY 2016
The planned activities for FY 2016 build on the learning from FY 2015 and are set out clearly in the project Annual Work Plan FY2016. Highlights for the next quarter include:
Advanced Advocacy and Public Awareness workshop (April - Niger Delta)
Sub-Granting Training (Abuja – April – for 4 national partners)
Innovation Design Workshop (May – Abuja)
PIND Mid Review (Abuja, May)
M&E/Knowledge Sharing Workshop (May/June – Keffi and Benin – for national and Niger Delta clusters respectively)
Niger Delta Civic Engagement Forum (June – Benin)
SACE partner CEO meeting (June)
Root Change Senior Technical Advisor, Alexis Smart surge visit (April/May – Abuja)
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8. WHAT DOES USAID NOT KNOW THAT IT NEEDS TO?
Sub-granting – the project has concluded its Sub-granting manual and will roll this process out with four national clusters in FY 2016, starting with a training event in April. The purpose of this to both strengthen outcomes by providing resources to select organizations within clusters towards achieving cluster results as well as strengthen anchors and their ability to manage resources. Both these will contribute towards the two high level project goals of achieving demonstrable reform results as well as strengthening anchors to have the capacity to receive direct funding from USAID.
Project funding - Incremental funding obligations have been a regular point of conversation during Q2 of FY2016 and SACE recently adjusted Q3 and Q4 activities as a reflection of this. At the time this report was submitted, SACE’s current obligation levels were sufficient for just two additional months of operations.
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