THE PROJECT: The Creative Communications Project was initiated to improve how Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Nigeria conduct fieldwork and report outcomes to their stakeholders. The scheme continues to work with selected NGOs on upgrading their communication approaches, web presence, social media outlook and report presentation skill-set.
THE PROJECT: The 2012 floods in Nigeria, which affected 27 of the country’s 36 States and the FCT, Abuja resulted in the loss of over 300 lives and the displacement of over two million people. About 597,476 houses, farmlands, livestock and other means of livelihood for millions of rural dwellers were destroyed. Soon after, the receipt and utilization of the government-allocated Flood Relief Funds, worth N17.6 billion ($109.1 Million) soon became an issue of national interest and outrage.
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Since inception, BudgIT’s activities have transformed the discussion around and about the Budget, on social media and offline. Oluseun Onigbinde started BudgIT with 2 employees and 3 volunteers, whilst still working fulltime as a banker. BudgIT now has a staff strength of 26, with plans to increase the Analyst, Developer and Project officer figures. Currently, our focus is recruiting more women; as they remain a scarce demographic in the technology sector. The staff breakdown is as follows:
THE PROJECT: The Even it Up Nigeria campaign is a global campaign backed by OXFAM which focused on raising awareness about the level of Inequality in Nigeria. Relying on extensive empirical research and fieldwork, the resultant reports unearthed and explained the disparities in income, gender and livelihood in the Nigerian economy with the use of photography, infographics, offline campaigns and online engagement.
Madam Jane, a mother of three in Maraba, a suburb near the FCT, recalled her ordeal in the hands of the TBA and vowed never to visit any again.
THE PROJECT: The Ebola Fund Watch project due to the May 2015 epidemic of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), which infected over 28,000 people and killed at least 11300 in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria. The Fund was structured to guide the management of the emergency resources pledged and disbursed to manage a global spread of EVD. With about $2bn going to the West African region towards the containment of EVD, the project was designed to ensure the efficient use of the Ebola Fund, promote regional transparency and accountability by ensuring full access to data documenting how the Ebola funds were expended across affected countries for the benefit of the ordinary citizens within their borders, many of whom were direct victims. The Open Society Initiative for West Africa financed this project, and its progress was made possible with the assistance of other developmental partners; Ebola Alert, Campaign for Good Governance, Accountability Lab and HEIT Solutions.
THE PROJECT: Budget Access is an ongoing project where the creative use of technology is employed to generate and sustain public interest in hitherto boring and difficult-to-understand data. By making matters of public finance more comprehensible and figures more relatable to individuals across every demographic and literary span, we aim to reach the unreached in our quest to raise more civic-minded individuals, better able to discern, and take decisions pertaining to matters of national interest.
THE PROJECT: The Access Nigeria-Sierra Leone Project aims to enhance - and where necessary kickstart - the effectiveness of government anti-corruption agencies, by improving their collaboration with civil society organisations (CSOs) in the fight against corruption and fostering accountability in the expenditure and auditing of security funding. The Access Project explores a collaborative, bottom-up approach to increase access to data in the justice and security sectors. The guiding principle is that citizen access to reliable information from government institutions will allow the public (CSOs, government agencies, and businesses) to use data to monitor, and report on public services. As watchdogs, this will in turn tackle corruption and encourage greater communication between security and judicial authorities with citizens. It is expected that the cumulative effect will be a better understanding of which reforms are most effective in reaching each country’s development goals.
THE PROJECT: For over 40 years, the Oil and Gas industry has been the main source of revenue for Nigeria’s economy, providing about 75% of the country’s budgetary income, yet very few Nigerian understand the workings of the sector - to the detriment of the economy and by extension all Nigerians. Our country’s fixation on oil, and the volatility associated with oil revenues therefore necessitates the #FixOurOil campaign.
BudgIT is leading the wave of civic tech in Nigeria with support for organizations and projects such as CMAP-IT, FInd a Cop, FOI Vault and Public Interest in Corruption Cases (PICC). We are on course to ensure that we encourage building solutions that improve the interactions between the state and citizens using technology. BudgIT is working on a physical civic tech space to spark ideas that transform governance.
BudgIT improved the website of the Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC), Nigeria’s leading procurement advocacy NGO, with a view to furthering transparency in bidding, procurement and contract delivery processes across the private and public sectors of the country. Procurementmonitor.org
BudgIT & Kaduna State are working on the first sub-national budget in the country tagged “Open Kaduna Project.” This is a pioneering effort at building Nigeria’s only fully-automated, online budget reporting and monitoring system, from deliberation, to collation, allocation, procurement and auditing stage.