Lois Otse Adams
The Open Government Partnership (OGP)’s National Secretariat, under the leadership of Dr. Gloria Amhed, bagged an award of excellence, in recognition of its contribution to the promotion of budget transparency and accountability at the sub-national level. The event was held on Monday, 14th November 2022 during the FGN/World Bank SFTAS award dinner organized for State Governors.
The States’ Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) award dinner was a sideline event of the just concluded 28th Nigerian Economic Summit, tagged, 2023 & Beyond, Priorities for Shared Prosperity.
OGP Nigeria has played a critical role in supporting the Sub-Nationals during the four years implementation of the FGN/World Bank assisted States’ Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) Program for Results that ensured States to institutionalize their participatory budgeting and publication of Citizens Budget, Publication of budget performance online, publication of Citizens’ accountability reports; and implementation of Open Contracting and the Open Contracting Data Standard.
OGP Nigeria Secretariat, having worked with stakeholders from both civil society organisations and government, has also ensured that the States’ performances are objectively assessed, thereby giving rise to the States’ determination to improve on the SFTAS thematic areas. Deserving State Governments were also recipients of awards on various aspects of SFTAS.
SFTAS has showcased and promoted the genuine effort of President Muhammadu Buhari in signing in to OGP at the London Anti-Corruption Summit in May 2016.
Since the signing, OGP Secretariat had made deliberate efforts toward stimulating and promoting transparency, and accountability in Nigeria, especially in citizens’ inclusiveness in government plans.
The National Coordinator made a commitment that with the support of the State Actors and Non-State Actors Co-Chairs, Prince Clem Agba and Dr. Tayo Aduloju respectively and other stakeholders, to promote public probity, accountability, and transparency in the manner public resources are utilized.
The National Economic Summit is an annual forum that attracts national and global leaders in government, business, politics, development, civil society, and academia to discuss issues of sustainable economic development and related matters.
The 28th Edition of the summit held on 14th – 15th November 2022 at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, Nigeria was a hybrid summit platform of in-persons and virtual dialogues to deliberate on priorities beyond 2023.
Discussed during the summit was the urgent need for economic brainstorming as Nigeria proceeds into a transition year and for stakeholders to galvanize and articulate the country’s development imperatives that satisfy the need for economic security, social justice, conscientious governance, political stability, inclusiveness of women, people living with disabilities and environmental sustainability with the intentional prospect of drawing lessons and insights from the past and present to set the economic policy agenda for sustainable economic development.
Other areas of deliberation were economic sustainability, visionary leadership, execution, political economy, and inclusive growth in addition, the four designed sub-themes on delivering macroeconomic stability, shared prosperity, investment in our future, unlocking the binding constraints to execution and reframing the agenda were discussed.
