The International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) has sought collaboration between Civil Society Organizations and Media organizations with the aim of promoting good governance in Nigeria.
The collaboration, according to Gloria Agema, Deputy Programme Manager at the ICIR while speaking at a roundtable discussion between CSOs and Media, organized by ICIR, would help to achieve increased accountability, transparency, and good governance at the federal and state level.
Gloria Agema also stressed that the partnership would help the two groups to speak in uniformity, and it would be useful “for us to combine our resources and leverage each other’s strengths to enlighten the citizens and ensure inclusive participation in the governance of affairs at all levels.”
Speaking about other efforts of the ICIR to hold the government accountable and promote good governance, Agema explained that the ICIR is running a project tagged, ‘Open Contract Reporting’ (OCR) through which journalists have been trained to track government activities and hold them accountable.
“With this project, we have been able to train journalists on how to engage the government based on the budget and procurements in their states,” she added.
She noted that the training would help journalists to understand the procurement laws to ensure they are more knowledgeable about how the government awards contracts and they are better positioned to hold the government accountable.
Agama thereafter mentioned that it is important that CSOs are involved in the project, as it is essential that government officials at grass root levels are also held accountable.’
Participants at the meeting, who are mainly media professionals and representatives of CSO groups, corroborated the importance of creating a common font to engage the government.