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By our reporter
The Young Men’s Christian’ Association (YMCA) Mada Hills, an NGO, has trained no fewer than 50 state and non state actors on Open Government Partnership (OGP) in Nassarawa state to promote transparency and accountability in governance.
Mr Ango Adamu, Executive Secretary YMCA Mada Hills, disclosed this at the 2 days capacity building workshop on OGP for state and non state actors in Lafia.
According to Adamu, OGP is an international multi – stakeholder global coalition of reformers from government and civil society, working to make government transparent, participatory and accountable to truly serve and empower citizens.
He explained that the programme was organised by YMCA in collaboration with Association of Small Scale Agro Producers in Nigeria (ASSAPIN), African Activists for Climate Justice Project, with support from Oxfam in Nigeria.
He said that the AACJ through Oxfam is promoting transparency and integration of climate reforms to reduce the burden faced by women and youths in the state.
Adamu said the workshop was aimed at bringing state and non state actors to together to develop thematic working areas and action plans that would help in getting the full benefits of OGP for the state.
“The key thematic areas arrived at include promoting transparency and accountability around mineral extraction and enforcement of environmental laws amongst other critical areas,” he said.
Adamu who disclosed that Nasarawa state recently joined OGP, said the state had met a lot of criteria to fully incorporated into the platform to attract donors to work in the state just like other states in Nigeria.
Mr Uchenna Arisukwu, Civil Society Advisor, OGP Secretariat, said the workshop was organised to build the capacity of the state and non state actors to understand the roles they expected to play in bringing more reform into the governance.
“The OGP is a global platform for reformers from government and civil society to make governance processes more open and accountable, and also make people to have a say and contribute to the governance processes.
“We are here to speak to government and civil society partners in understanding what OGP means, to begin to develop action plan, because is the vehicle through which the OGP will be achieved in Nassarawa state,” he said.
He commended Nassarawa state’s commitment to deepen good governance as it signed into the OGP, adding that it was a very giant leap.
Speaking earlier, while declaring the workshop open, Mr Emmanuel Alidze, Permanent Secretary, state Ministry of Finance, Budget and Planning, said the transparency and accountability were cardinal principles of gov Abdullahi Sule’s administration.
“I didn’t foresee any challenge in supporting this programme, because one of the cardinal principles of this administration is transparency, together with the support of civil society and OGP we will develop the action plan,” he said.
Also speaking, Chris Mamuda, Senior Special Assistant to Gov Abdullahi Sule on economic matter and Asibi Ogabo, Executive Director, Source of Hope Foundation, both Participants, said they looked forward to seeing improvement in government service delivery.
Ogabo said: “All those things we agreed upon; the working together of government and civil society I hope will help in curtailing the level of corruption in the society and offices, and also hope this engenders accountability.”
