DANGLING THE CARROT: THE EMERGENCE OF MORE FRAGILE STATES IN WEST AFRICA

Just this morning, hundreds of people have started fleeing the northern Nigeria state of Borno to neighbouring Niger, Chad and Mali. Apparently, the government of Nigeria just announced a state of emergencyin 3 states - Yobe, Adamawa and Borno, where the popular terrorist group – Boko Haram resides. Niger, Chad and Mali seem to be a big suspect. How? – Niger has a awful 81.8% of her population in severe poverty; Northern Mali is still struggling with war, and also has 68.4% of her population in poverty; the story of the later – Chad has been disturbing in recent times, with the shrinking of her only resource – the lake, perhaps due to climate change.

These are all fragile states, which are also a reflective of low income countries. The average gross national income per capital of the 16 West African states is at $908.75. That’s quite disturbing! The highest in this region is Cape Verde with about $3,540. Singapore and Malaysia both have $42,930 and $8,770 respectively. ( Scroll over map below to view indicators of fragility in West African countries) 

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Nigeria, where 52% of the about 312 million people living in West Africa reside was ranked 14 out of 117 countries on the 2012Fund for Peace failed states index. Her demise remains peculiar owing to its size and population. While her GDP has become one of the fastest growing in the Sub Saharan, it is been threatened by insecurity. The Boko Haram sect based in northern Nigeria has killed about 1,854 people in 2 years

More than ever, the time bomb seems dangling on the giant that looks over the West African state. The challenges of insecurity, lack of social services, job creation and accountability in government cannot be over emphasized. In Nigeria and other West African countries, about 48.3% still live in poverty. Paul Collier, a professor of economics at Oxford University referred to them as the “Bottom Billion” in 2008 and proffered some solutions. It’s quite unfortunate that the same challenges still exist, with the same set of people at the leadership.
(View Paul Collier TEDx Talk below) 

One may have taught, as the post – 2015 deliberations set in, wouldn't it be pertinent to add good governance to one of the sustainable development goals? If government cannot provide basic services (roads, good education, health centres  to her citizens, fragile states resorts, thus demining the prospect for development. However, the way out of these environments is a very limited, much focused package because the capacity for change in these societies is very limited.

Often the government is not able to do very much, and people have no self belief in their society. Where will the solutions come from? It should come from the indigenes, perhaps with little support from external stakeholders.

MONITORING AND EVALUATION SYSTEMS: CAN THEY PROMOTE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN WEST AFRICA?

Development programs are expected to deliver results for everyone involved in development. The value of their ideas, advice and action produced is increasingly being gauged by whether it improves lives and for us to affirm, it should be in the public domain. In the 16 countries in West Africa alone, $15 trillion has been spent on aid between 2010 – 2012 with Nigeria and Ghana receiving the most with 42% and 14% respectively (View the dataset Here). Lots of funds you will say – but does this amount to development? Out rightly, only two (Cape Verde and Ghana) out of these 16 countries falls within the Medium Human Development Rank of the Human Development Index 2013, the others keep crawling within the Low Human Development Rank since 2009 that the Index has been published.

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Consequently, every program needs the information to answer three vital questions: “what could constitute success in addressing problems?”; “How will we know success when we achieve it”? And can achievements and its processes be shared in the public domain”? Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems can help everyone understand which programs are working, which are not, which can be scaled up, and which could be abandoned, but how it answers the questions in these West African countries remain farfetched!

Recently, during one of the M&E courses I facilitated with Cloneshouse Nigeria, where 80% participants were from government institutions, I asked “will your government be able to publish findings in public domain, or perhaps the breakdown of total spending of your government”? Most of them responded with enthusiasm that they are willing and ready, but their greatest fear might be hindrances coming from the political party, on whose platform they were elected.

Problems of the Country highlighted in Red and Solutions in Green. How True?

Nevertheless, M&E systems can promote transparency and accountability within governments in West Africa. Beneficial spillover effects may also occur from shining a light on results. For aid organizations, how much pressure is put on receiving governments is what we don’t know. One of the participants asked “why do we always receive world bank grants for creation of more health centers, while the once available aren't serving to optimal level, we already have enough health centers to cater for the population of the state”

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No doubt, external and internal stakeholders should have a clear sense of status of projects, programs and policies. But, is the ability to demonstrate positive results able to increase popular and political support in West Africa? The truth is that most citizens do not have public confidence in the leadership of their various states. Even, if they publish positive results, citizens believe the outcomes are been doctored to portray “a breath of fresh air” which evaporates at dawn.

Certainly, there are organizational and political costs, and risk associated with implementing result – based M&E systems. There are also crucial costs and risks in not implementing such systems. Suffice it to say that, M&E systems are not new to governments in West Africa, with every department and project having its own M&E unit – how effective are the unit in this region? Permit me to say “I only see their trucks and vehicles, much more than I see their findings in the public domain.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIES: A RECIPE TO #SAVEBAGEGA

In october 2012, when the Follow The Money Team were developing their website, little did they know that the hashtag #SaveBagega was going to reach a staggering 600,000 people from over 100 countries. Consequently, putting more pressure on the government of Nigeria to attend to the urgent need of this ailing community.

Screenshot (Jan 26, 2013) of a hashtracking report on the
 hashtag #SaveBagega

Bagega is a village community in Zamfara, Northern Nigeria, where 1,500 children awaits urgent medical attention for lead poisoning. "All we had in mind was to create a web platform integrated with social media tools, and write reports (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Storify) that could amplify the voice of these helpless communities" said Hamzat Lawal, co - creator of the non-profit group that advocates, tracks, and visualizes aid meant for local communities.

Taking a time travel to a decade ago, the story of Bagega wouldn't have reached the next town to Zamfara. Perhaps, if the same medium was used in 2010, when about 400 children died of thesame lead poisoning, an epidemic that was 'termed the largest in the world" there would not have been much death as reported.

Everyday millions of hash tags are been created on Twitter for different reasons. "We were looking for a hash tag that could easily be related with the ailing community, and since this advocacy was directed to saving these children in Bagega, we decided to create #SaveBagega" affirmed Hamzat

Screenshot (October, 2012) of the Follow the Money Website

Coordinating Tweets could be challenging atimes, as such tweets were directed towards stakeholders that were concerned, no thanks some were already using twitter! the list included president Goodluck Jonathan @goodluckjtweets, he's social media PR wasn't spared - Reno Omokri @renoomokri; also the Senator who sees to matters of ecology and environment - @bukolasaraki Tweets were also directed to organizations that might be interested in children, communities, data, accountability and transparency.

Moreover, On December 6, 2012, a social media campaign was also launched with Human Rights Watch urging people to help write on the official facebook wall of President Goodluck Jonathan "President Jonathan, why won't you release the money you promised in May to clean up poisonous lead in Zamfara? Children are dying and your government's failure to act is putting more children at risk".

What happened afterwards? By the end of January, when Senator Bukola Saraki visited Bagega, he confirmed to the whole world, not through the terrestrial media, but through his twitter handle @bukolasaraki that "from confirmed sources the president has ordered the release of funds for the remediation of Bagega. Perhaps, a win for the use of "co-ordinated" creative technologies. Having said that, what would have happened in cases where the government has no presence on internet or the social media?

I have it on good authority that Mr President has approved the immediate release of funds to re-mediate Bagega.@yusufismail1 @xeenarh
— Sen. Bukola Saraki (@bukolasaraki) January 25, 2013

Recently, I was talking with some colleagues on how the internet not only make information open, but how it has become "a house of history" in 30 years from now, the children of Bagega will be opportune to read what struck their community, some years back, and what their leaders did to save them!

As the quest to ensure transparency and accountability in the funds released to Save Bagega continues, at the last stakeholders meeting on February 12, 2013 in Gusau, the Follow the Money Team asked the Ministry of Mines and State Development (MMSD) on going on how much was made available to them.

How much went to Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel? They said we will get that information before next meeting to #SaveBagega
— Follow The Money (@4lowthemoney) February 12, 2013

."We will get back to you before the next meeting and try to make it public" says the representative of MMSD. All these were posted on their tweet handles for the world to see. On February 26, 2013, the MMSD announced in a press release that 158.3 million was received by their parastatal to encourage safer mining in Zamfara.

As Follow the Money might not be the only available or possible model for advocating for open data and transparency, or tracking and visualizing aid meant for local communities, it can be said that they have been able to document history, and open a new page in how creative technologies can be a tool for saving communities - Maybe in this part of the world!

HOW YOUNG NIGERIANS ADDED THOUSANDS OF PLACES TO GOOGLE MAPMAKER

They (View their names here) are experts from diverse field interested in using technology to drive social change – in this case, they are to add thousands of places – Hospitals, Schools, Government and Private offices to Google Maps using the “easy to use” Google Map Maker. Referred to as the “crowd” they came into Abuja from different parts of Nigeria to join in a one week of mapping exercise tagged “#AbujaMapUp  from  January 26 – February 2, 2013. “I saw the message on twitter and I decided to follow up with the programme” said Kenneth Ogwo based in Lagos.

Group Photo of participants at the training

Kick starting the event on January 26, 2013 was training on Map Making at the International Womens’ Center where about 80 of the 140 registered participants were present. Gracing the session were representatives from Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation (OSGOF), Abuja GeographicInformation System (AGIS), National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), National Biotechnology Development Agency, Federal Capital DevelopmentAuthority (FCDA), British High Commission, Life Impact Foundation International and a list of others from the private sector. The training session was opened by Adepoju Abiodun (Google Student Ambassador for Nigeria) presenting what Google is doing in Africa followed by several ignites talks on different forms of mapping. “It’s quite interesting, I just added two places on Google maps” exclaimed Nnodim Rose Blossom while Onochie Mokwunye said “I have started adding places with the aid of my mobile phone GPS device, this has been quite revealing”.

Okwunwa Godwin (NEMA), Uzowulu Williams(NEMA  and
Fawole Yetunde(FCDA) joining to Map Wuse 

On Tuesday, January 29, 2013, the participants were grouped into different teams, armed with printed satellite imagery of areas they are familiar with. While they move from one street to another, they tag each building on the imageries, inserted and adjusted roads, which they were able to upload on their various laptops when they get back to their convergence where wireless internet is been provided. This was the routine for four days! “It was fun mapping my area, I enjoyed it” said the 18 year-old Python Programmer, Prince Robert Chetachukwu, a secondary school student of the Gwarinpa Senior secondary School in Jabi. “I never knew my business can be open to the world online for free, please let me know when goes live – you are making history” said an excited Mr Jude, owner of Newton Parks and Resorts at Wuse Zone 4

As the team move from Tetrazzini, Wuse Zone 3; Salamander, Wuse 2; Mr Biggs, Jabi and Drumstix, Gwarinpa Estate as meeting points, making it easier for locales to add businesses online could expose illegal businesses, too. “I am terrified” said Esther Agbarakwe , who raised fear about security of Mappers, and how illegal business owners can be hostile when they see teams taking notes. Not only did this exercise brought like minds in the non-profit and private sector, it brought government officials too who shared their concerns about the exercise, with even AGIS willing to release their data to the team. What does this imply? It means a whole lot of collaboration and partnership is envisaged between these communities – but who will initiate this bold step? We will see in coming days!

Participants adding points from paper maps to Map Maker
at Tetrazzini, Conakry Street, Wuse Zone 3

On Saturday, February 2, 2013 the team decided to go “OPEN” and have fun at the Millennium Park after days of intense mapping. An evening to share ideas, lessons learnt and experiences. “As I have been able to map lots of places, for me, it was an opportunity to contribute back to my community and for the first time I feel involved and the only challenge is the security situation in the country” said Blossom, a new media expert. “It has been an awesome experience seeing people putting their community on the map of the world, while drawback remains the unavailability of a tech hub or lab where the team could converge and populate points easily” said Iyke Maduako, a geospatial expert. “The experience is quite wonderful, prior to now, I never believed those points on Google maps and Google Earth is been added by people like myself, moving forward, I believe more traditional awareness should be initiated to get people to know about mapping” said Omoleye Gbenga, a Calligrapher

AbujaMapUp Team at the Millennium Park

As these young Nigerians – “crowd” add their names to the history of their community, the biggest challenge remains keeping them together. Out rightly, lots of potentials lies within them – Journalists, Geospatial Experts, Data Wranglers, Computer Programmers, Emergency Managers and Development Consultants. How best can Nigeria utilize the energy within this community? Lest I forget, someone told me they will be coming together again on March 2, 2013 at Salamander, Wuse 2, perhaps, this might keep the community together!

Read More Stories about the #AbujaMapUp on Voice of America and Global Post

MAKING DATA OPEN FOR DEVELOPMENT: THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT IN NIGERIA

What could have kept one glued to the Television on the 1^st day of the year? Perhaps, the English Premier League, The Big Bang Theory , or  Grey's Anatomy. None of them! It was Platform, showing on the “Largest television network in Africa” – Nigeria Television Authority, popularly known as NTA on Tuesday, January 1, 2013 at 11 – 12 pm. Interestingly, the guest was Honourable Matthew Omegara, chairman, House on committee on Reform on Government, while the topic – The Freedom of  Information (FOI) Act kept me glued. The Freedom of Information Act, that has been on the front burner since 12 years ago was signed into law by the President, Goodluck Jonathan on May 28, 2011. The House of Representatives passed the Bill on February 24, 2011, while the Senate passed it on March 16, 2011. Both House harmonized it, and was passed by both chambers on May 26, 2011. As this act can deliver Nigeria from the shackles of corruption and accountability, 19 months after it has been signed into law, analysts say there is still a lot that is missing in the Act.

As part of the Committee’s function, they are to engage people from the public and private sectors, the non-government organizations on how best to enforce the act to achieve the goals it was meant for. “It is time for civil society organizations, and the public at large to wake up and start enforcing this Act. Since the bill was passed 2011, we haven’t seen much petitions from the public, especially the media hasn't been up to the task” said the Honourable  The FOI Act has been domesticated in Ekiti State, while in Lagos; it has passed the second reading in the State House of Representative.

The Honourable mentioned that the request for information should be forwarded to MDAs (Ministry Department and Agencies) with respect to the issue at hand. Putting things into perspective, Mr Adamu, from Kunguru village read it in the newspaper that 20 million was allocated to the Ministry of Health a year ago to build a primary healthcare centre in Kunguru. Meanwhile, no primary health care structure is visible at Kunguru. Mr Adamu is meant to verify the authenticity of the news, afterwards forward a letter to the MDA responsible, which in this case, is this Ministry of Health. Honourable Matthew further said, one should get the information requested for in 7 days, and if otherwise, one can proceed to the court of law. Alternatively, “petitions can be forwarded to the Secretary,  Committee on Reform of Government, at the House of Representative” the Honourable member said.

As much as analyst has taken down prospects of the Act, the Honourable seems excited about the FOI Act, he equally stated that states adopting the Act shouldn't be a challenge, since they all adopted the former Official Secret Act, which has been replaced by the recent FOI Act. “By 2014, any MDA that doesn’t set up its FOI Department would not get approval for its budget” confirmed Honourable Matthew Omegara.  As much as the challenges of the FOI Act remains conspicuous – such as information relating to national security, request for information exceeding the mandatory 7 days, and bureaucracy in the MDAs, it shouldn’t make us lose sight of the fact that some positives might come out of it. Some days ago, I was discussing the FOI Act with a Legal Practitioner, and he reiterated the fact that writing to any MDA alone to ask for information could put pressure on them. "Its one step in the right direction and I wouldn't want to say that all request might end up as a court case because most MDA wouldn't want to be involved in legal tussles" he said.

Several times, it has been said that, getting citizens to participate in issues that concern nation building isn't an easy task, owing to the grave loss of public confidence in the government. By the way, one may have asked, where are the CSO’s, media houses, investigative journalist that agitated for the FOI Act? They aren't sleeping, Right to Know has been monitoring the FOI Act, how it is been implemented, and perhaps sensitizing the public; The Media Rights Agenda, has also been holding workshops on the FOI Act for CSOs. What does this mean for Open Data and Open Development in Nigeria? It means Startups like BudgIT and Follow the Money could use this medium in tracking aid flows from the government to communities, at least to an extent, which could have never been achieved before.

The Honorable mentioned how they have started the sensitization in regions of the country with support of UKAid, CIDA and UNDP. Sometimes in December last year, I attended the Ministry of Information sensitization on the FOI Act at the Nicon Luxury. Awareness and education on the FOI Act wouldn’t stop, however stories of how organizations have started enforcing the Act should be told, lessons learnt can then be used in decision making. In all, it was a pleasure, listening to those that make our laws on TV; the truth is that at long term, enforcing the Act can help in making information public, and also tracking funds that flow from the government to communities!

ABUJA IN TIME AND SPACE: HOW TO BECOME A CITIZEN CARTOGRAPHER

How many organizations do you reach in Lagos in 5hours? “I manage to do three, if it’s on the mainland and two if it’s towards or on the Island” replied our focal point in Lagos. So what about Abuja “I always do 2 in 1hour, so I reach 10 in 5hrs, however, getting the exact location or address remains the biggest challenge. Even most of the popular on-line yellow pages don’t have a recent and reliable data of important places in Abuja, same with the popular Google maps!” narrated our focal point in Abuja.

Participants at the Google NYSC Lagos Mapup engaged
in Ground truth activities

By the end of 2012, Google Map Maker will have data to cover about 5million unique miles, in 3,000 cities on every continent! Including Antarctica. One of the greatest contributors to these massive data is Google Map users – I mean me and you, and we keep populating the maps every day. Abuja is not an exception. Nevertheless, am being told several times, that “the location of that pub isn't right on Google Maps”, that “there are now five new schools on that avenue, but we do not have them on our list as gotten from Google Maps”. Recently, a friend on facebook posted “Please can anyone help me with the direction to a nearby hospital around Cadastral A7,  my child just had a deep cut”, and a student from one of the universities asked me “why won’t Google have my building on Google Maps?”

Mappers doing a ground truth of images from Google Maps
Students of  the University of Ibadan Mapping their campus  

These are some of the issues the Google Map Maker Mapup tagged the “Abuja Mapping Party” tends to solve. In 6 days, starting from January 26 - February 2, 2013 (Find programme of activities here)  we hope to have mapped about 9,000 points which include roads, pubs, offices, schools, hospitals, gas stations, parks and other point of interest within Wuse II, Wuse Zone 1-7, Jabi, Utako, Life Camp and the largest estate in West Africa – Gwarinpa. The event will give you an opportunity to show/share your local knowledge by mapping places in Abuja, exchange ideas and win while having fun.  The Abuja mapping party will show participants how to map different places, draw roads, add categories and discuss other features. This will enable them become citizen cartographers and improve the quality of maps and local information. If you will like to join us, kindly register here  and don’t forget to come with your back bags, coffee cups, plug – outlets and your computer devices.

Mappers at the Google/NYSC Lagos MapUp Event

The event hopes to make particularly Abuja, a smart city, a better mapped city with relevant and recent local information such as roads, schools, hospitals, banks, hotels, police stations and such other important places entered by you, having local knowledge. We will be looking out for the youngest and oldest mapper amongst us, as such we invite children, students, geo-spatial experts and people from all works. “Google Map Maker Souvenirs’ and refreshment will be available, and a certificate of participation will be given to all participants at the end of the event” affirmed Adepoju Emmanuel, a Google Map Maker advocate and ambassador.

WOULD YOU SPARE A CLICK TO SAVE 1,500 CHILDREN?

What would one give in exchange for a new iPad? One 17yr-old boy gave a kidney! Apparently, he couldn’t afford an iPad and wanted one so badly that he was willing to risk surgery. Now you have a chance to sign a petition to save the lives of 1,500 lead poisoned children here

Primary school children in Bagega

Bagega, a small community with a population of about 10,000 people in Northern Nigeria has about 1,500 lead poisoned children awaiting urgent medical attention.

In the heat of November, while I was in Bagega, I strolled into the only clinic, which had three blocks of dilapidated wards, with rickety patient beds (three in each block). Entering the first block, meant to be a delivery ward, was sitting a woman carrying a new born baby. One of the staff told me the woman just got delivered of a baby boy. “The only thing we are not certain about is the lead blood level of this newly born in the next coming months”.

The extension of the clinic at Bagega

While the numbers of children keep adding up in this community, the only hope for them is you and I, that will be responsible for getting the voices of these innocent children heard, not only by the federal government of Nigeria, but the world at large. “Children keep dying of high lead blood levels in our community, but seem underreported” affirmed Sanni M. Aliu Bagega, a 31yr-old Environmental Health Officer from Bagega.

While the government of Nigeria, during an International Conference on Lead Poisoning on May 9 and 10, 2012 , already promised $4million (NGN850million) for the clean-up of this community. About 7months now “there hasn’t been any help until now, people come to talk to us, but they won’t do anything” said Halima, a grandmother that has lost eight grandchildren to lead poisoning already.

The contaminated Inna Gwabi Dam in Bagega where
community members fetch water, wash and have their bath

Remediation can’t wait to save the lives of these children. Apparently, we can’t afford to head to the streets, but our appeal can be forwarded through a click. Please sign the petition here on behalf of the children of Bagega. About 512 great people from 59 countries already signed, and this has made local and international media, the social media including bloggers amplify the voice of this ailing community.

On December 6, 2012 as a follow up, the Human Rights Watch launched a social media campaign seeking the president’s release of promised cleanup funds. To join the campaign asking President Jonathan to release the funds, you can visit his facebook page and comment on his last status update with the following message:

'President Jonathan, why won’t you release the money you promised in May to clean up poisonous lead in Zamfara? Children are dying and your government’s failure to act is putting more children at risk'