Bauchi, Kano, Rivers, Sokoto commit to sustaining USAID pilot local level governance model

Bauchi, Kano, Rivers and Sokoto State governments have committed to sustaining the USAID pilot programme on local governance in Nigeria.

The states, which have benefitted from a 9 year USAID funded RTI-LEAD project disclosed this during the closing out workshop in Abuja.

At the dissemination workshop, state and LGA government representatives, NGO leaders, religious and traditional leaders gave testimony after testimony of how the RTI-LEAD project model increased grassroots governance, improved LAG transparency and led to community inclusion.

“Findings from the retrospective project evaluation which was conducted by the development Research and Projects Center (dRPC), a local NGO, showed the benefits of training local community associations and LGA officials on participatory local level governance techniques,” noted a statement from dRPC.

Evaluation findings which were presented by Dr. Judith-Ann Walker of the dRPC showed how the LEAD project empowered local communities to participate in budgeting, to generate local revenues and to contribute to development priority setting.

The dissemination ended with a 2 hour open discussion on the importance of local level governance in Nigeria especially in the context of the new national health sector strategy to channel Basic Health Care Provision Funds to facilities at Ward level.

Participants from the 4 USAID focal states gave their commitment to sustaining the RTI-LEAD local level governance model and thanked USAID and RTI for piloting the grassroots governance model.