From Left: BRW team, Roseline Onayi Mathew and Austin Ekwujuru; and PPDC Team, Â SeemberNyager, and GiftOmoidedia
On the 3rd of May 2017, followingBasic Rights Watch’s (BRW) quest to build partnerships and leverage of the phenomenal experiences of domestic non-profits that have already made awesome impacts around the country, we were invited for a strategic session with the management ofPublic and Private Development Centre (PPDC). The PPDC is a non-governmental organization that was established to increase citizens’ participation in governance in a way that improves the integrity of public and private sector processes. This core of the organization is being implemented through its principal program,Procurement Monitor. Consequently, the organization birthed an online platform,Budeshi which is being used to link budget and procurement data to various public services using the Open Contracting Data Standards (OCDS).
The Budeshi platform is primarily being used to demonstrate to public institutions the utility of linking procurement and budget data using uniform data standards. This is with the intent of having the OCDS adopted by public institutions. Ultimately,Budeshi seeks to ensure that public finance information is coherent and linkable to public services. Considering PPDC being one of the most important actors in open government and advocacy for better educational and quality health outcomes in rural communities, which have correlations with ourTransparency Alert andTracking Needs programs, we went in for the strategic session with several expectations which were met.
The session started at 9 am and was chaired by Seember Nyager, the Chief Executive of PPDC. The senior program officer of PPDC, GiftOmoidedia was also in attendance. First on the list was a review of BRW’s Strategic Plan. We had prepared a one-year Strategic Plan on our three programs, with goals, objectives, activities and indicators. Seember examined the strategic plan, commended it while recommending that we include: high-level plans that expand beyond one year, broad, long term and short term goals, mapping out of stakeholders and audience, coherent indicators, as well as assumptions and risks associated with our focus.
Personally, their hospitality to us as a budding non-profit was awesome. During the 3 hour session, we had a tea break (Lool). I personally learned on the need for organizations to have a clear understanding and direction through long and short term goals. I also learned of various experiences of PPDC in the open government sector.
I think for BRW, such meetings are exceedingly imperative as it paves a way for the organization to learn from senior actors in the sector. We are currently revising our Strategic Plan following the outcomes of the meeting. What do we hope to achieve through the Strategic Plan is for it to be our map as we work on promoting and ensuring an open government in federal universities capital spending as well as advocate for governmental interventions around the core urgent capital needs of rural communities.
By ÂRoseline Onayi Mathew, a Lawyer and Program Assistant at Basic Rights Watch. She tweets @mathew_roseline. Her e-mail is roseline@basicrightswatch.org
