Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 102)
TUESDAY 7 JULY 2009
MR ABOUBACRY
AND MS
JULIA AJAYI
Q100 Chairman: Given the issues,
especially in the North, do there need to be more and stronger
groups for women and girls because there seems to be a lack of
advocacy there. We did meet one particular group which was a Sharia
Women's Group but we got the impression that there was not really
enough activity on their behalf generally—that that was
an exception in other words.
Ms Ajayi: Yes, I would say that
we need to seek out those groups and we need to do more work with
them and certainly when we strengthen our gender work that is
something that we will be looking to do, and also developing relationships
with national level organisations like the Women's Development
Centre, the Federal Ministry of Women's Affairs, the Women in
Nigeria State Chapters in some states which are also quite strong.
Mr Tall: There is maybe one group
that we may not often focus on and that is all the national diaspora.
If you take a particular state or a particular community there
may be many citizens of that state or that community that live
elsewhere in Nigeria, and they usually contribute a lot through
remittances, through other forms of engagement, in development
back in the areas where they come from. Usually they are in associations—village
development associations, state development associations—which
could probably be useful partners at a state level or a local
government level which usually do not figure clearly in our plans.
Julia mentioned the national level issue-based ones that might
be useful—for example, there is a fairly effective organisation
in the health area which is a national, advocacy-based civil society
think tank on health issues that is able to help drive a number
of elements on the health debate around the country. Those may
be useful and similar ones may be focusing on some of the gender
elements and some of the social cultural practices that may be
part of the problem in northern Nigeria. Another obvious partner
is that there is usually a national ulemas and religious leaders'
association that might be useful to draw in to address some of
the disparities that we see in Northern Nigeria as well.
Ms Ajayi: I do think that civil
society organisations have a real challenge in terms of accessing
funding and the reality is that if they are to do work they will
need to be able to access funding, and some of our support has
been through helping them look for funding strategies and where
to access funds but it is an ongoing challenge.
Q101 John Battle: Everywhere.
Ms Ajayi: Everywhere, I agree,
but particularly in Nigeria.
Q102 Chairman: Thank you both very
much indeed for all of that, it has certainly added a lot to our
understanding of the issues. As I say, we have the Minister next
week and our report will be produced during the course of the
recess. As I said at the beginning it is a challenging environment,
but on the other hand there are people like yourselves engaged
in it along with DFID. The way DFID put it to us is that sometimes
getting results in a big picture can be depressingly slow or invisible
and you have to celebrate the small victories on the way and then
hope that gradually they will coalesce into something bigger.
Thank you very much for coming to give evidence.
Ms Ajayi: Thank you.
Mr Tall: Thank you.
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