Representatives from donor communities have called for a holistic approach and networking among funders across the country to create a much stronger organisation.
They stated this at the June 2020 edition of Dataphyte monthly webinar event tagged; “The Role of Donor Community in Combating COVID-19 in Nigeria.” The webinar had Mr. Jude Ilo, Country Director, OSIWA, Ms. Toyosi Giwa of the EU funded RoLAC Programme, and Dr. Kole Shettima, Africa Director, McArthur Foundation.
The Webinar was moderated by Ms. Sarah Muyonga, a policy analyst and former Country Manager of the Natural Resource Governance Institute in Nigeria.
Speaking on the need for networking and collaboration among funders, Dr. Shettima said the downturn in economic activities is going to impact the work of the Civil Society. He said, “We may be thinking differently. Should we pull our resources together rather than doing the same thing together at the same time? Maybe we should create a much stronger organization by pulling resources together and working together.”
Jude Ilo, Country Director, Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), corroborated with Dr. Shettima’s call on the need for more effective collaboration among the donor community.
“Funding agencies are not government and cannot take the role of government. But to look at the gap and fill the gap. In filling the gap, we are conscious of the vulnerable in society, especially women at this time.
“The fund is minimal, and network buildings at the level of the funders are very important and crucial at this time.
“OSIWA, Ford Foundation, and MacArthur are now facilitating networks of other funders in the country. For instance, MTN foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.”
Mr. Ilo said the three donor organisations are now facilitating engagement among donors across the country. He advocates for the same level of collaborating among civil society bodies.
On her part, Ms. Toyosi Giwa, the Civil Society Lead of Rule of Law and Anti Corruption Programme (RoLAC), advised civil society to be more prominent on social media, TV, Radio to be able to carry out activities and advocacy during the pandemic. She said the EU funded RoLAC will continue to support advocacy on novel coronavirus.
The three panellists said their first action is to ensure grantees follow strict guidelines against coronavirus and make their work flexible.
“As a funder, we gave our grantees the flexibility to re-purpose their grants. Also, on issues such as report deadlines and activities,” Dr. Shettima notes.
“We looked at emergence fund for COVID-19 and focused on frontline workers – Nurses, Doctors, Cleaners, and others,” Ms. Giwa said.
“We are planning to expand with government agencies and help those people with disabilities such as the provision of palliatives and ensure they get government palliatives,” she added.
She said RoLAC has supported groups in Anambra and Lagos. They have also made recommendations to the government on how they can reach people with disabilities.
Mr. Ilo said OSIWA studied the period to understand how grantees can function and which area to extend funds.
“Protecting grantees and protect those vulnerable people – are our guiding principles. And this should form every donor organizations, especially multilateral.
“For instance, as an international donor, we looked at households not covered in New York palliative scheme because of their immigration issues. For us in OSIWA, we applied roughly above $3 million to focus COVID-related responses.”
$6 billion COVID-19 fundings from various donors
Checks by Dataphyte showed that donors and corporate organisations extended about $6 billion funding to Nigeria on COVID-19 related responses. These include the World Bank, IMF, AfDB, USAID, EU, and OSIWA.
Some are also in the form of support to strengthen Nigeria’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. For instance, Ford Foundation donated vehicles to Lagos state government to ease contact tracing in the fight against COVID-19.
Grants re-purpose
They said they adjusted to time by repurposing some of the grants to COVID-19 related responses. For OSIWA, Mr. Ilo said the organisation re-purposed fund to provide PPEs and help disabled communities and others. “We did the same also in our media sustainability grant. We had to put in salary to help 5 or 6 organisations across the country. The principle behind it is about ensuring organisations are able to survive and ensure no one is left behind.”
Accurate Data still Nigeria’s headache
Despite all these activities, accurate data is still a headache in implementing developmental activities in Nigeria. During COVID-19 pandemic, no accurate data to give a clear picture of people under the poverty line. Also, there is no goodwill from the government for citizens to trust.
This gap is what Dataphyte is cut out for. The startup provides end-to-end data service, focusing access on data for social-economic development and corporate sector growth in Nigeria.
Dataphyte hosts a monthly webinar on socio-political-economic issues around Nigeria and Africa. You can reach Joshua Olufemi for partnership and sponsorship of the series via [email protected].
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