PROGRAMMES

CRC PROGRAMMES

Monitoring the electoral process and training civil society to engage in electoral monitoring

Elections and the process of bringing new people into the public space to implement public services and programmes has been under serious challenge; CRC monitors the process and engages in Election Day monitoring to build evidence on the fairness and transparency of elections and the process. CRC has worked in collaboration with community people, volunteers and coalitions to undertake activities in these regards. Many agencies including the European Union, DFID and UNDP have supported this process.

Engaging the budget process

Public sector budgets are tools for delivering public services. It entails conceptualizing the dreams of the society and citizens, formulating these into concrete actions and budgeting them, implementing the approved version by the House of Assembly and monitoring to ensure that the effectiveness has been achieved and the impact of the activity achieved on lives and livelihoods of citizens. CRC follows these stages of the budget process working with allies and community people to stream wider society perspectives into the process and the final outcomes of the approved budget. This effort has been supported by many agencies including the UNDP, European Union, World Bank and the DFID/Christian Aid Nigeria.

Community and public dialogues

Public policies often do not adequately address the challenges most vulnerable groups are facing. Often it could be that the thrust of the government has not focused at all on issues of great concern to the public or that it only does so very inadequately. Such matters are brought to open discussion to call the attention of stakeholders to issues of great concern to citizens to policy makers by way of policy dialogue to give the matters needed attention. The support of DFID/Christian Aid in the Voice to the People (V2P) project has made this activity have more results as it effectively engaged the policy process.

Climate changes and land degradation

The challenge of land degradation and climate issues has become prominent in our community life. It manifests in various dimensions in agriculture, water sources, deforestation and gully erosion. CRC works with communities to give education, undertake tree planting, train youths on solar technology and engage the government on environmental policies to focus on community challenges in these regards.

Community Based responses on access to Water and Energy

Public facilities have not delivered effective services to address the problems of access especially in the communities; the situation has been as if they were designed to fail. CRC mobilizes stakeholders around public facilities to assess their level of performance and engage duty bearers and others that may have responsibilities to make the services delivered to those who have rights to be served. Working with tools such as community score card and service providers score card, duty bearers have been made to positively respond to the challenges in having public facilities deliver services on water, health care and education. CRC had the support of the World Bank, European Union and DFID/Christian Aid Nigeria

HIV/AIDS, Stigma and Discrimination

The ravages of HIV/AIDS and other related infections have been engaged by CRC through the support of National and State Agencies on HIV/AIDS. Through community programming, CRC has worked with communities to reverse some cultural practices such as nightlong wake keeps and initiated behavioural changes towards people living with HIV/AIDS.

Human rights abuses, widowhood rights, violence against women and rights of children

Tackling matters related to traditions and customary practices required long advocacy routes supported by evidence. CRC has engaged in this process with allies and community people to build evidence which is used to hold conversations with traditional chiefs and Association of Town Unions to challenge community sensibilities to the issues and make community policies that stops the degrading practices. CRC logs human rights abuses to document cases, mediate on some of the cases and refer others to our allies that engage in mediation and this has yielded good results.

Alternative disputes resolution

The long routes of court adjudication and the crises that ensues after court judgment has made alternative dispute resolution very attractive. CRC engages in this process to lead adversaries reach a middle course of agreement and understanding. This engagement has brought together groups that were in court but agreed to take leave from the court to mediate and go back to the court. The court has adopted CRC resolutions and MOU with the parties as its judgments on the matter and discharged the cases.

Community engagement on malaria

CRC working with other stakeholders has given education to communities on malaria. It features sharing IEC materials, community training on prevention, RDT, use of health facilities and ACT drugs, IPT, public rallies and outreaches to create awareness. These efforts have been supported by the World Bank.

Committee of stakeholders’ conversation on improved delivery of public services

There are gaps in implementation of public polices and it affects very adversely vulnerable and poor people most because they do not have access to corridors of power to complain. This programmes was thus designed to create access and give voice to individuals and groups that have no voice and power, access to the high offices of the powerful in government to discuss their challenges. It focuses on budget policies’ implementation, budget performance, evidence of delivery in the field and impact on stakeholders. These have effectively addressed challenges faced by the vulnerable and bridged relationship between the duty bearers and right holders. DFID/Christian Aid Nigeria has supported this process in Voice to the People (V2P) project.

Engagement with the State House of Assembly

The need for effective representation of the people is the idea behind this activity with the State House of Assembly. The importance of law making and oversight function for members of the House cannot be lost in the sloppy performance of the House over the past years. Civil society support was needed to increase the voice of the House to effectively engage on improved delivery of services to the people they represent. CRC has engaged in this process working with other allies to effectively discuss governance and improved services with the House of Assembly. UNDP has supported this process and DFID/Christian Aid Nigeria in Voice to the people project (V2P)

Engagement with the Executive Governor

At the end of the day the buck stops on his table; ineffective democratic governance has reduced participation in government. Many issues could not be resolved at the management, departments and agencies level in government and may have to be taken to the man who has overall responsibility to motivate the process of government and ensure that services are delivered. CRC setup this activity to give voice to civil society at the highest level of authority in government to discuss naughty issues that could not be resolved at lower levels of government to improve access to public services. This effort has been supported by DFID/Christian Aid Nigeria.

Media engagement

Information sharing is at the heart of CRC work. The media is a very important vehicle in this process apart from interactive sessions, town hall meetings and social forums. CRC engages in regular interactions with the media to share information on its work with the wider society to build support around issues of governance based on evidence. This sensitization is very critical to civil society work and success.