Nana Afadzinu, the Executive Director of the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), has called on Civil Society Organisations in Nigeria to look inward towards reducing their dependency on foreign sources of support.
She made the call while speaking on Thursday in Abuja at a press conference held by WASCI ahead of its official launch slated for November 16.
She said a study by WASCI to ascertain the impact of COVID-19 on CSOs in Nigeria showed that CSOs were significantly affected negatively by the pandemic as their financial stability was reduced.
The study: revealed that out of 80 CSOs who took part in the survey, 38.4% had funding reductions from major donors whereas 58.1% CSOs were unable to raise any domestic resources during the pandemic to complement external donor funding.
55.8%of the CSOs agreed that they could not mobilise domestic resources which revealed the fragility of the financial sustainability of many CSOs in the country.
The way forward: CSOs are urged to look inward towards reducing their dependency on foreign sources of support in the face of shrinking international support to broaden the support base available and accessible to CSOs in the country to involve every Nigerian.
What you should know: The civic Space in Nigeria, like many other West African countries, is shrinking and creating a disabling environment for civil society’s effectiveness.
With support from the Ford Foundation, WACSI is implementing the Civic Space Resource Hub in collaboration with Spaces for Change to provide the needed resources to civil society actors in these countries to build their resilience and also confront the civic space challenges.
This programme targets three West African countries, including Nigeria. Civil society actors in Nigeria are key players in WACSI’s sphere of influence given the large number of civil society organisations in the country, comprising approximately 46,000 non-governmental organisations (and counting) across the six geo-political zones of the country.
The WACSI node will act as a liaison office and connect civil society organisations and their partners to the various service offerings provided by WACSI. These include training, mentoring and coaching to strengthen capacity in institutional governance, management and operations of non-profit organisations; this is not limited to NGOs.
About WASCI: WACSI was set up in 2005 and has equipped 8,899 participants from 5,452 civil society organisations worldwide.
WACSI being physically present in Nigeria now means Nigerian CSOs can easily access their services and training to build their capacity, to be able to mobilise domestic resources and become sustainable.
