Our-Work-2018-Eng

Our Work Editor: Chinelo Onwualu | Graphics: Dudu Squad / Emé Designs | Report Design: Emé Designs foreword Over the past few years, we have highlighted some of work covers eight of our ten focus countries. Over the great work our partners are engaged in throughout the past five years, we have worked to help restore the region through our annual flagship publication trust between citizens and governments by ensuring ‘Our Stories’. While amplifying partner’s voices will that CSOs and government institutions work to always be central to OSIWA’s mandate, this year, adopt Freedom of Information (FOI) laws and raise we are heading towards a slightly new direction citizens’ awareness of existing laws that lead to and presenting a publication called ‘Our Work’. This transparency and accountability in our region. publication will complement our previous publications We believe that Legal Empowerment is a tool to with an in-depth analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, enable marginalized and poor people to be agents challenges and opportunities we face with regards of their own development and to stimulate reforms. to programming in three main thematic areas. Though our work on legal empowerment has solely In 2017, as part of the Foundation’s internal focused on Sierra Leone, we succeeded in identifying learning process, we undertook the 5-year review of a diverse range of partners working to address three thematic areas of work: Elections, Transparency the different facets of this thematic area of work, & Accountability and Legal Empowerment in which includes expanding access to justice services, West Africa. ‘Our Work’ seeks to share some of advocating for legal reform, improving paralegals and the key findings of this exercise with you. other legal empowerment actor’s skills and capabilities Since we began working on Elections, we have and enhancing coordination and communication. witnessed a wave of both optimism and skepticism While ‘Our Work’ will offer deeper insights into from citizens regarding elections and democratic OSIWA’s role in promoting open societies in West Africa, processes in West Africa. While challenges still lie we also hope that it will contribute to the ongoing public ahead, some notable gains include improvements in discourse on the state of the region with regards to electoral integrity and conduct, proactive electoral issues of governance, accountability and human rights. observations by civil society, increased citizen participation in the electoral process, institutionalized voter education initiatives, and significant post-election engagement between elected officials and citizens. Transparency and Accountability lie at the heart Ayisha Osori of OSIWA’s programmatic strategy. Not only does OSIWA Board Chair it cut across different thematic areas, this strand of elections context We believe that elections in West Africa contribute to better leadership and democratic governance. However, after decades of broken promises and few economic improvements, many voters in the region were sceptical of elections and the democratic process. In recent times, a fresh wave of optimism and citizen activism approach & has been pushing for more responsive and assumptions responsible governance In the past, we focused on improving the management across the region. and quality of electoral and voting processes. We encouraged citizens’ active participation in elections Today, we are working towards a West Africa where through civic education, engaging with peace- regular, credible elections are the norm, where building issues and messages of anti-violence. We citizens are actively engaged in the electoral process, also placed a significant amount of resources into and where elected officials listen and respond to improving the quality of elections through the their people even after they have gained office. introduction of the Election Situation Room (ESR). In our current strategy, we are complementing these efforts by promoting issue-based campaigns and emphasising the ongoing relationship between voters and their governments even after the elections are over. We understand that meaningful elections and good governance are only possible when citizens can cast informed votes and continue to engage their elected officials throughout their time in office. areas of focus (2012 — 2017) Improving Electoral Integrity and Conduct Our work to improve elections integrity came primarily in three forms: helping Election Management Bodies (EMBs) carry out their mandates to the highest global standards, establishing Election Situation Rooms (ESRs), and encouraging peaceful For instance, in 2014, we financed two projects with and quality electoral processes in specific countries. the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) For example, we supported 25 senior staff members in Côte d’Ivoire. The projects brought together 22 of the Commission Electorale Nationale Independente coalitions with about 800 member organizations from (CENI) in Guinea in receiving Building Resources in across the country to establish an election monitoring Democracy, Governance, and Elections (BRIDGE) platform called PEACE-CI. This, along with the creation certifications to conduct high-level trainings ahead of an ESR on the day of the 2015 presidential elections, of the 2014-2015 electoral cycle. For the first time in allowed for proactive electoral observations that led to Guinea’s history, there was a database of election more than 100 incidents and challenges being resolved. experts, and they have since been contracted to In 2015 in Guinea, we helped the Association des conduct trainings across the country and the region. Bloggeurs de Guinée (ABLOGUI) to provide a technical platform to collect and analyze data for the ESR run Our support for the creation of ESRs, by the CSO coalition, Regard Citoyen. ABLOGUI’s which are election observation systems aim was to set up a reliable web platform covering that allow civil society organisations Conakry and the 33 prefectures, so they trained more (CSOs) to use the latest technologies to than 450 e-observers and deployed them across the track electoral processes and respond in country. The e-observers collected data in such a real time, allowed us to contribute to the systematic way that their figures closely matched organization of credible and peaceful the ones announced by the electoral commission, presidential elections in several countries. giving much-needed legitimacy to the final results. Improving Voters’ Understanding of Election This is a good example of how the local credibility of Processes a religious organisation played a major role in peace- We have supported projects that encouraged citizens building, voter education, and interreligious coexistence to register to vote as well as educated people on the in a fractured environment. polling, counting, and result collation procedures in their countries. We found that to achieve our best results we Improving had to adapt our strategies to the language, location, and Participation in level of education of the people we were working with. Electoral Processes For instance, in Northern Nigeria, The Catholic We also support initiatives Diocese of Sokoto used their Justice, Development, and that ensure voters make Peace Centre (JDPC) to convene town hall meetings informed decisions while across the state in the run-up to the 2015 elections. participating in the electoral Despite an environment of suspicion between Christians process. These include and Muslims, they were able to creatively articulate projects that made the the concerns of both groups, and get candidates political positions of parties and to commit to reforms when they were sworn in. their candidates accessible to The meetings opened up dialogue between residents, voters, platforms that allowed religious groups, and the government, resulting in a candidates to challenge one drastic reduction in campaign-related violence and another on key issues and an opportunity for women to voice their opinions. political promises, and programs that created environments As a result, many who had intended to for issue-based conversations flee due to fear of religious and ethnic between candidates and citizens. violence stayed to participate in the For example, with our support, The IMANI Centre elections. for Policy and Education in Ghana has been using a framework called the “IMANIFESTO” to assess the manifestos of key political parties in the country for the past seven years. In 2015, the centre’s survey included a comparative analysis of all the manifestos of the major political parties and an examination of the implementation of the over 540 promises made by the ruling National Democratic Congress in 2012. They shared the document with the public and candidates then had to defend their positions and performance. In another instance, the Institute of Economic For instance, in Nigeria, we helped the Affairs (IEA), Ghana, received funding from us to Centre for Democracy and Development promote a Presidential Debate among the leading (CDD) put together the Nigeria Political candidates in the city of Tamale in 2016. In the Parties Discussion Series (NPPDS) in 2015. months leading up to the Debates, campaign and The forum was a way for citizens to share media discussions focused more on personalities their opinions and directly question politicians and petty bickering. However, the Debates shifted about their policies. Each session of the series the dialogue and helped move discussions to was open to the

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