Grace Egila
The Centre for Advocacy in Gender and Social Inclusion (CAGSI) has marked the close-out of its Promoting Resilience and Good Governance through Citizens’ Active Participation and Economic Empowerment Project in Kano.
The project was designed to promote resilience and good governance through citizens’ participation in budget processes (creating demand through budget inputs), Democracy and Governance (voting and contesting), governance processes (creating demand for service delivery), the formation of village savings and loans association to implement income generating activities.
The one-year project which was supported by the European Union through British Council’s Agents for Citizen-driven Transformation (ACT) Program was implemented in three senatorial districts and some Emirate Councils for diversity and inclusion in the state.
Speaking at the close-out event which was held at Murtala Muhammad Library in Kano on Saturday, the Executive Director (ED), CAGSI, and Maryam Garba Usman urged beneficiaries to apply the knowledge acquired during the lifespan of the project.
She said the essence of the close-out event was to celebrate and share it success stories of the project with the community leaders and the larger society.
It was also meant to bring the advocacy groups and Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLAs) to know each other and share learning experiences.
Talking about promoting resilience and good governance through citizens’ active participation and economic empowerment, Garba said: “The project concept and implementation strategy was introduced to the community and religious leaders of the selected project locations for acceptance and sustainability through familiarization, courtesy, and advocacy visits.
“During the first stage, the local government were selected from three emirates council which cuts across the three senatorial districts.
“And in all these local governments we set up the VSLAs as well as the advocacy groups.
“The VSLA was for women’s economic empowerment and the advocacy group is for the governance aspect which engages the local government authorities in budget and community development.
“We were able to set 21 VSLAs for women, youths, adolescent girls, and People with Disabilities in six local governments across three emirates councils.
“We were able to give out a loan of 9.5 million Naira to these associations and also we were able to reach out to 780 individuals in the group.
Garba however, said some of the challenges the project faced were electioneering activities preventing them from meeting the state-level policymakers.
“Some men refused to join the VSLAs due to female dominance in the leadership structure and more women are interested to join but the project had limited funds that can support only 18 groups.
“Additional VSLAs self-sponsored their financial expenses while the project provided technical support.”
During the event, some community-based trainers and VSLAs were awarded for supporting the implementation of the project in the Emirates.
The ED CAGSI then encouraged VLSA and advocacy groups to work towards sustaining the project, adding that CAGSI is willing to support them do so.
She thanked the district heads of each local government for supporting the project in different capacities.
Some of the beneficiaries who appreciated the effort of CAGSI said the project has enabled them to actively participate in politics as well as enlightened them on issues affecting women in their community.
