About the project
In December 2022, with support from LEAP Africa’s Nigeria Youth Futures Fund (NYFF), we commenced the implementation of the youth component of our Grassroots Advocacy Project (GRAP) to attract, empower and mobilise the youth in the six council areas in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for active civic participation. This includes empowering youth on how to participate in the 2023 general elections, understanding government budget processes, and tracking projects in their communities to drive participatory and accountable governance in the pursuit of the attainment of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and #TheNigeriaWeWant.
Objectives
Our objectives include the deployment of technology and offline methods to engage youth across communities in the FCT for civic participation; to empower youth on participatory governance and how to demand accountability so as to follow up on their community’s needs; and to validate NYFF national visioning report on youth needs, document and produce a fact sheet and policy brief on accelerating youth civic participation to guide Youth Economic Empowerment and Development programmes (YEED) for effective participation, inclusion, and empowerment of young people in the FCT.
Our activities in civic engagement
One of the three goals of our Accelerating Youth Civic Participation (AYCP) project funded by the Nigeria Youth Futures Fund (NYFF) was to empower youth on civic participation and how to demand inclusion and accountability so as to follow up on their community needs in the federal capital territory (FCT). This includes mobilising them to collect their permanent voter cards (PVCs) and vote in the 2023 general elections. This report is just the civic and election participation aspect of our project.
In January, our team toured eight (8) communities across the six area councils engaging youth and women on the need to collect their PVCs to vote in the 2023 elections. Specifically, during the town hall meetings, we separated participants with and without PVCs and took those without PVCs through the importance of having their cards, and how and where to collect their PVCs. We equally tied their failure to vote in past elections to why the primary healthcare centres (PHCs), roads, water supply and schools in their communities are in bad shape to motivate them to get their PVCs and vote in the 2023 elections.
We also held six (6) Twitter Spaces series on #YouthParticipationInFCT prior to the elections from December 2022 to February 2023 to mobilise young people for the polls.
Online engagement sessions
From December 2022 to February 2023, we held six series of Twitter engagement sessions to drive youth participation in the 2023 elections. A total of fifteen (15) speakers who are influential youth leaders and activists participated in the sessions.
Such include Ebenezar Wikina of the Policy Shapers and Change.org; Rinu Oduala, project director at Hub Nigeria; Babatunde Akintunde; director of programmes at CJID; Daisi Omokungbe of PROMAD; Azeezat Yishawu, speaker of the Nigeria Youth Parliament (NYP); Sara Egbo of Gender Mobile Initiative and Nanven Mamdam amongst others.
Youth needs assessment and launch of a policy memo
We deployed our community needs assessment civic tech platform https://grap.org.ng to engage youth across communities in the six area councils of the FCT for data collection on youth issues.
The data led to the development and launch of our policy memo in April. The policy memo examines youth civic participation and development in the nation’s capital. Specifically, it assesses youth-related issues and groups the findings into three major categories—access to economic power; civic and political participation and inclusion; and youth and electoral violence.
The memo is being used for advocacy with relevant government agencies and stakeholders and is available for download here
The noticeable impact and change being made
- According to the data released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), was FCT among the ten states with increased voter turnout in the 2023 elections while it decreased in other states. Though, this didn’t happen as a result of only PROMAD’s work in the FCT.
- PROMAD released a policy memo which is serving as an advocacy tool to guide governments’ Youth Economic Empowerment and Development programmes (YEED) for effective participation, inclusion, and empowerment of young people in the FCT.