The European Union has launched a new programme with a total funding of €13.5 million targeted at supporting civil society organisations (CSOs) in Nigeria.
Ketil Karlsen, head of EU delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, said the programme, tagged ‘Agents for citizen-driven transformation’ (ACT) is designed to improve the capacity of the CSOs.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday, Karlsen said the four-year programme is also aimed at supporting the CSOs to influence the achievement of the sustainable development goals in Nigeria.
He said the EU will among other things provide capacity training to enhance CSOs’ operations at several levels through participatory workshops and peer learning
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He added that funding will come in the form of “technical assistance to improve their operations”, with the British Council acting as delivery agent.
“Civil society, just like key political stakeholders, play a critical role in making sure that there is a real progress (and) we see that gap and the need to elevate the capacity of the civil society,” he said.
“So, we want to support CSOs to play that vital role that they need to play to keep the rest of us on our toes and to provide that vita and constructive input.
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“Our ambition is not to have a long line of workshops in expensive hotels. We will look at what can be done in hands-on manner to ensure the support provided is result oriented at the end of the day.
“We are supporting them to improve their efficiency and effectiveness and to do things differently.”
Karlsen also said Nigeria is one of the key receivers of EU development assistance worldwide with about €700 million in support in combination of that of regional activities through ECOWAS.
“We believe this programme will be transformational and supportive for civil society to play very constructive roles in seeing that the right policy decisions are being taken in support of the Nigerian citizen,” he said.
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