How Can Rural Communities Benefit from Open Government Partnership in Nigeria?
Every responsible government should aim at becoming open and transparent in order to establish close ties between the government and the citizens. Open governments benefit from the input, knowledge and expertise that citizens can contribute to the decision-making process of constituted authorities. The pillars of open government are transparency, accountability, participation and at the same time collaboration. Compliance with open government, leads to increased knowledge-sharing, innovation, and a more active public which ultimately support and enable the formulation of people-centered decisions; policies and programs.
According to Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), open government means opening up of government processes, proceedings, documents and data for public scrutiny and involvement. It recognizes that sustainable development cannot be attained without working with citizens and stakeholders, not just for them. Increasingly, open government is considered as an inseparable and fundamental element of true democracy. Evidence suggests that it leads to better policies and services and promote public sector integrity.
Because of the broad concerns and multi-dimensional nature of rural development, its study and practice requires skills and insights from a wide range of disciplines. Be that as it may, rural development involves the process of improving the quality of life and economic well-being of people living in rural areas. It is a strategy designed to improve the economic and social life of a specific group of people — the rural poor. The complex argument of rurality or what constitutes a rural area will not arise because even for the not-too-sophisticated Nigerian, the differences between the village and the town/city are only too obvious to warrant any serious analysis. Urban areas are where the “good things” prevail in abundance while the rural areas are with opposite attributes. This implies that rural areas are often neglected, abandoned and starved with social amenities and also the various trappings of modernization.
Having said that, how can rural development benefit from open government? Since open government entails working with the people (not only for the people) for better policies, programs and services, it underscores a relationship between the two: open government and rural development. If I claim that open government is a prerequisite or a catalyst for sustainable rural development, there are few social workers who could protest. In Africa, the ubiquitous challenge of guiding villages out of poverty is one with no end in sight. There are embarrassing figures and indicators of stagnancy or even worsening levels of lack, exclusion and inequality. This is responsible for the increasing number of humanitarian and non-governmental organizations in the frontline of open data and social accountability, working to step down levels of corruptions. Although a symptom of an ailing system, corruption has been identified as a major infirmity undermining development in Africa.
Without attempting to profile civil organizations in the transparency and accountability space in Nigeria, there are organizations standing tall in the space regardless of personal sentiments. They include Connected Development - Follow The Money, Public-Private Development Company, BudgIT Nigeria to mention but a few. These organizations deploy accountability technologies in attaining their corporate objectives. Technology has become almost synonymous with development since after the industrial revolution in Europe in the 19th century. Technologies are tools to address problems, not solutions in themselves. They can be highly effective when fit for purpose.
To amplify the relationship between open government and rural development, I shall extrapolate examples from an anti-corruption giant- Connected Development. In the course of our interventions in tracking education funds for the construction and rehabilitation of facilities at Taban Sani Primary School and a cluster of educational projects in Kudan LGA, Kaduna state; there are exciting examples of how government is meeting her education targets- working with the people. There was a particular instance where funds were provided for the construction of perimeter fence in a village primary school without a proper needs assessment. When the contractor was mobilized to site, it was found that the school already has a perimeter fence. In the circumstances, the community leaders negotiated with the contractor, working with local government educational authority, and the project was reconsidered in favour of rehabilitating a dilapidated block of classrooms.
Although this was technically a case of non-involvement of the intended beneficiary during project determination and selection, the fact that project details and particulars were made open and available to citizens, the community rose to the occasion and the funds were properly utilized. Looting, misappropriation and plundering of public funds is not news in Nigeria. It has even assumed sociological and cultural dimensions but this particular fund was judiciously redirected because the locals or community members had access to the financial details of the project. As a result, it was difficult for any person(s) to abuse or kidnap this fund meant for rehabilitation of this primary school under consideration.
Another example (but this time more interesting), was at Nisama in Jema’a Local Government Area of Kaduna State — Kaduna again. By the involvement and active participation of community members in the implementation of basic education reconstruction projects (as monitored by Connected Development — Follow The Money), some youths in the community volunteered as security guards in order to ensure security and seamless implementation regime. At a time that rural banditry and vandalism is prominent across villages in Nigeria, youths in Jema’a chose a different path, a development-conscious path. There was no singular security issue until the projects were completed. This was a fantastic story of community collaboration occasioned by open data initiative. The government of Kaduna State was among the first to domesticate Open Government Partnership in Nigeria. This has positively changed the manner public officials carry out official businesses. The people of Kaduna State, arguably, has a belt of most active citizens in Nigeria, courtesy of open government.
Space would fail us to adumbrate numerous examples on how open data is catalyzing rural transformation but I will resist the urge to skip the latent potential of open data in whistle-blowing and community policing. Neither whistle blowing nor community-policing would succeed without opportunities for dialogue and collaboration between government and the public. When there is romance between the two actors: government and the people, it leads to increased knowledge-sharing, which ultimately support the realization of development objectives and importantly, community ownership and sustainability.
Open government has come to be recognized as an inseparable component of democracies. As the focus is the integration of citizens in the policy framework and architecture (since they are the end users), all levels of government in Nigeria and by extension Africa are persuaded to embrace open government as the future of our democracies. Every year, Connected Development joins the rest of the world in commemoration of March 03 is as Open Data Day. That been said, Nigeria will be celebrating the Open Government Partnership Week on the 7th — 11th May, 2018. In this meeting, efforts should be focused on using #OpenData for rural transformation. This is the only way these technocratic meetings could benefit rural dwellers in Nigeria.
This article was written by Ani, Nwachukwu Agwu. He is a rural development expert and works for Connected Development as a Programs Officer. You can reach him via nwachukwuani@gmail.com or @NwachukwuAni
