Accountability Lab Nigeria as part of the activities under their project “CivActs” supported by Voice Nigeria organized a One-day Multi Stakeholder Engagement on Strengthening Inclusion of the Marginalized Groups in FCT.
The organization in the meeting presented a survey they carried out through the project which aimed at collecting citizen or community data that could bridge the gap between communities and stakeholders with a spotlight to the plight of marginalized groups. The survey was carried in the month of November and December through a random sampling method conducted in FCT, Kaduna and Imo State and the marginalized groups targeted are women, youths and persons with disabilities.
The survey was highly inclusive, there is 55% women representation and 25.3 % persons with disabilities representation and the largest demography is the youth between 26-35years which is the 33.8 % of the respondents to the survey.
Key findings of the survey are:
- There is a huge mistrust for government and stakeholders in communities
- Communities do not feel carried along or sense of belonging in decision making process (they feels that their opinion does not count, and they seek for opportunity to participate in the process).
- There is lack of access to information on how they can participate in decision making process
- Communities would also like to engage with elected representatives and government more often.
The stakeholders at the meeting agreed that there should be more government engagement to build synergy between the government and the communities taking in consideration the peculiar needs of these marginalized group.
Emmanuel Odeh, the country director, Accountability Lab while while responding to a question from TQM, said that inclusion and inclusive service delivery is the two thematic areas they should be working on and that includes working with the National Commission of Persons with disabilities to see how they work together to strengthen disability inclusion in Nigeria.
The stakeholders at the meeting were organizations and representatives of the marginalized groups from the three state where this project is targeting which is Imo, Kaduna and FCT.
SOME PICTURES OF THE EVENT
