Come and join this conversation to learn from the experiences of civil society organizations in 9 African countries (Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe) about how to leverage OGP to promote multi-stakeholder collaboration and improve the delivery of primary health services.

We aim to enable peer-learning, collaboration and engagement in OGP in Africa, covering issues related to mobilizing citizens and civil society to strengthen and build on the OGP process, and making it more relevant for health at the country level.

This conversation is part of the COVID-19 Transparency and Accountability Project (CTAP) led by BudgIT, Connected Development, and Global Integrity.

Panelists:

Actions for Development and Empowerment (ADE)

• Nancy Saiboh, CTAP Cameroon Lead, talking about a citizen led campaign for Cameroon to advance transparency, participation, and accountability and join OGP.

BudgIT Ghana

• Ray Nkum, CTAP Ghana Lead, sharing on the efforts to mobilize citizens at the national and subnational level around OGP and the value of this platform for advancing health transparency and accountability.

BudgIT Nigeria

• Iyanuolowa Bolarinwa, CTAP Nigeria Lead, talking about the role of OGP in advancing service delivery, including health, and the challenges and opportunities to advance this goal.

Slums Information Development & Resource Centres (SIDAREC)

• Eve Mathai, CTAP Kenya Lead, sharing on the experience of working with coalitions to strengthen OGP and play greater attention to issues related to health service delivery

We’ll also have participants from Connected Development, BudgIT Liberia, Positivo in Malawi, BudgIT Senegal, BudgIT Sierra Leone, Magamba Network in Zimbabwe taking part in the conversation.

More about the Speakers:

Iyanuoluwa Bolarinwa is the Senior Program Officer at BudgIT in Nigeria. He is a creative and passionate professional with varied expertise in project management, product management, communications, and marketing. He is skilled in delivering projects from briefs received to the concept and actualisation, with proven track records in the management of Civic Hive and BudgIT.

Ndi Nancy Saiboh is the Founder/ CEO of Actions for Development and Empowerment (ADE), a non-profit, grassroots, and youth-driven organization founded by a with the aim of empowering young people to act around issues that affect their lives and play an active role in the development process, thereby creating positive change in their communities and Africa at large.

Ray Nkum is the Country Lead for the BudgIT Ghana program, ensuring that BudgIT’s mandate to boost transparency and accountability is successful in Ghana. Ray brings a wealth of expertise accumulated over 7 years in managing civic-tech innovations at scale. His main areas of interest lie in using research, innovative tech solutions and advocacy to leapfrog Africa’s developmental challenges.

Evelyn Mathai is the Head of Programs at Slums Information Development & Resource Centres (SIDAREC) and a budget facilitator. She is an advocate of social accountability, social justice, SDGs, budget literacy and climate change, specifically targeting persons in informal settlements. She is an ardent believer of influencing social change through community outreach programs, film, and social media campaigns.

More about the Organizations:

Cameroon | Actions for Development and Empowerment (ADE) is a non-profit, grassroots, and youth-driven organization founded with the aim of empowering citizens, especially young people, to hold the government accountable to its service-delivery obligations through informed demands. ADE is currently spearheading the local chapter of the Follow the Money (FtM) in Cameroon. ADE launched the CTAP project in Cameroon in February 2021 and has since convened a diverse range of local stakeholders to facilitate collaborative action for improving the state of Covid transparency in the country.

Nigeria | BudgIT is a civic organization in Nigeria that applies technology to intersect citizen engagement with institutional improvement, to facilitate societal change. A pioneer in the field of social advocacy melded with technology, BudgIT uses an array of tech tools to simplify the budget and matters of public spending for citizens, with the primary aim of raising standard of transparency and accountability in government. They partner with civil society, public institutions and the media, chiefly in the areas of fiscal analysis, civic technology and data representation. They are leading CTAP along with CODE and Global Integrity.

Ghana | BudgIT Ghana is coordinating the implementation of the CTAP project in Ghana since BudgIT Foundation started operations in Ghana in September 2019. In March 2021, BudgIT Ghana officially launched the CTAP project and has since convened a diverse range of local stakeholders to engage in immersive discussions on how Ghana can build a resilient PFM that enables the government to deal with the pandemic response in a more open and accountable manner.

Kenya | Slums Information Development & Resource Centers (SIDAREC) is a Kenyan grassroots communication NGO operating in three major informal settlements in Nairobi. In addition to being the lead country partner coordinating the implementation of the CTAP project in Kenya, SIDAREC is also the lead coordinator for the Follow the Money (FtM) Kenya Chapter. In February 2021, SIDAREC officially launched the CTAP project and has been able to bring together local actors working on Covid transparency to exchange information/resources and agree to a collective advocacy agenda.