Lagos inaugurates SDG grant for NGOs, civil society groups

In its drive towards mobilizing action for social impact endeavours, the Lagos State Government is supporting Non-Governmental Organizations, Civil Society Organizations, and other social impact ventures with grants to execute projects that target the 17 Global Goals.

The grant competition is designed to award the sum of N5 million each to three winning ideas that targets each of the SDGs. In total, the grant seeks to fund 51 projects addressing SDGs targets (3 projects per SDG) across Lagos state.

At the official launch of the initiative held at Alausa, Ikeja, Solape Hammond, special adviser to the governor on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Investments, disclosed that the vision was conceptualised from the Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu led administration’s insight to align its policy thrust, the T.H.E.M.E.S Agenda alongside the SDGs framework for measurable impacts in development process.

The essence of the SDGs Impact Grant Competition she said, stems from the conviction that real search for solutions must be based on integrated and multi-disciplinary efforts that go beyond the economic and social domains.

‘’There is a pressing need across the globe particularly in developing communities to articulate new ideas to reduce the gap between policy and action. There is the need to facilitate different approach towards inspiring more effective strategies and mobilizing relevant actors for wider partnerships’’, she stated.

In her word, ‘’Challenges to sustainable development process can be addressed when people at the bottom of the pyramid are empowered. Likewise, peculiar challenges such as poverty, hunger and education can be addressed when people at the bottom of the pyramid have access to income-generating opportunities, tools, and institutional support for doing business that promotes the tenets of sustainable development and growth’’.

The scheme according to her offers a broadband of opportunities to promote multidisciplinary collaborations focused on advancing one or more of the SDGs and facilitates faculty engagement with economic, social, and environmental issues that are critical to humankind at the local level.

She explained that government as a cornerstone of development is responsibly upholding and broadening collective efforts in sustaining relevance and exemplifying the creative exploration of how the SDGs provides a common language and platform for tackling challenges locally.

Hammond affirmed that the shared endeavour and purposeful engagement, is allowing government to mobilize appropriate ideas that will respond to several challenges that are critical to human survival, adding that beyond providing actionable plan for the execution of some of these goals, the grant will advance inclusive dialogues that can contribute to the achievement of the SDGs.
Selected project will advance the achievement of the SDGs in different ways, including but not limited to generating innovative collaborative projects or approaches that focus on specific SDGs in a particular community and/or a particular SDG-oriented challenge (e.g. climate change, addressing poverty, hunger or socioeconomic inequality); and/or the multifaceted cultural and societal contexts that need to be understood to approach complex problems in holistic ways.

Hammond stated that while the effort encourages ideas that will clearly demonstrate projects to address known needs locally and how it will contribute to at least one SDG including linking specific SDG targets and indicators, the state government also look forward to having applicable ideas that will further enrich our policies in identifying probable areas of socio-economic deficiencies across communities.

“We understand that our challenges are complex, and to address them requires multi-stakeholder collaborations and as such, this open, competitive, and rightly framed initiative is another platform to meaningfully engage diverse class of constituents to invent sustainable solutions for our challenges.

Hammond also mentioned that the Office of SDGs and Investment has created an online directory data base platform for NGOs, stating that interested NGOs can log into the lagossdgandinvestment.com to put in their details.

She mentioned that the challenges gathered from stakeholders informed the launching of the Directory as a database platform for NGOs to connect with the government on its programmes and activities as well as “understand what the opportunities were in the Government.”

While encouraging Non-Governmental Organizations, Civil Society Organizations and other social impact ventures, she said NGOs, CSOs must own this initiative with a strong presence in sustainable actions.
Present at the event were members of the State Executive Council, development partners, NGOs among other notable institutions.