1. MONITORING GOVERNANCE IN THE CONTEXT OF NEEDS – THE CIVIL
SOCIETY CHALLENGE1
Dr ‘Kayode Fayemi2
Protocol
The notion of good governance has gained greater prominence in the
democratisation discourse since the collapse of the cold war in the early 1990s.
Equally, its meaning has been the subject of contestation between promoters of
the shrinking State and the champions of the inclusive State in which the
establishment of a wide range of governmental and non-governmental
institutions enable people to participate in society. Despite the debate that
raged on the nature of the state, there has been a great deal of unanimity on
the need to arrest the ‘desertion’ by citizens that characterised the ‘old’ cold war
State, in Africa in the quest for a transparent, trusted and accountable State.
Although governance has always featured in the management of public sector in
Africa, it was rarely defined as a partnership between the rulers and the ruled
aimed at the efficiency of State structures. While the clamour for this type of
partnership has featured in the struggles for the transformation of authoritarian
structures and one-party states, the idea of a people driven governance was
largely ignored by the command economies that dominated the world in the cold
war era. The idea that the people ought to have a say in deciding governance
strategies was seen as an anathema and generally discouraged. In the search for
strong states, strong rulers were seen as the sine-qua-non. The more
unaccountable these rulers were, the more legitimate they became in the hands
of the metropolitan powers and their supporters. Even when the command,
interventionist economies of the 1970s and early 80s gave way to structural
adjustment programmes in the mid-1980s, governance defined as partnership
aimed at achieving ownership, social equity, equality and development was still
missing from the equation. Yet, in our view, fundamental to the notion of
governance is the ability of the state to provide efficient and well functioning
institutions and infrastructures of government – legally backed and socially
coherent – that together establishes and maintains an enabling environment in
which human security and human development takes place.
Yet, good governance was hardly a popular terminology in the international
development circles until the collapse of the cold war. Indeed, it was the World
1
Welcome Address to the “Legislative & Executive Governance Monitoring Dialogue” by Centre for
Democracy & Development & the National Human Rights Commission, held at Rockview Hotel,
Abuja from August 31 – September 1, 2004.
2
Director, Centre for Democracy & Development
1

2. Bank’s 1989 report “Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth”, that
introduced it in international development circles. Even when it was introduced
into the IFIs lexicon, its operational use was limited. In its use of the term, the
World Bank identified three distinct aspects of governance:
1) the form of the political regime;
2) the process by which authority is exercised in the management of a
country’s economic and social resources for development; and,
3) the capacity of governments to design, formulate and implement policies
and discharge functions.(World Bank, 1994b)
Although they recognise the holistic nature of governance, the World Bank and
other multi-lateral agencies have concentrated mainly on the third aspect in their
governance related work – the capacity of governments to design, formulate and
implement policies and discharge functions. Public sector reform and
management has been the most visible area of activity in this regard. This
ranged from capacity building and institutional strengthening in civil service
reform; government budget, public investment programme, modernisation of
public sector accounting and auditing; government financial management
information systems, development assistance and aid coordination, economic
management agencies and all other sections of government that are pivotal to a
well functioning public sector. Governance in the public sector has also been
concerned with the levels and quality of relationship between different layers of
government – central government and its subordinate tiers as well as the public
and private sectors.
The basic thrust of this reform process has been state retrenchment in all its
ramifications and this has been manifested in the shift from a highly
interventionist paradigm in many African states to one in which the role of
government is primarily that of an enabler for the private sector, a regulatory
framework and a provider of public infrastructure for the efficient running of the
market. Tied to the structural adjustment reforms whose objective was to
establish market friendly set of incentives that can encourage accumulation of
capital and more efficient allocation of resources, this shift often necessitated
conflict between capital and labour and it resulted in huge labour cuts arising out
of privatisation of inefficient state institutions with serious social consequences –
leading often to a disconnect between the shrinking State and the deprived
Society.
The challenge with institutional reform in many of the sectors highlighted above
has always been one of building convergence between the demands of the new
institutional governance environment and the legitimacy for enforcement
provided by the local context – between ‘good’ governance on the one hand and
‘democratic’ governance, on the other. It is because of the problems associated
2

3. with reconciling the State and Civil Society in the public sector reform process
that sustainable institutional capacity building has been difficult to achieve in
many African states and ours here is not an exception.
Notwithstanding this evident challenge, all stakeholders in Nigeria’s fledgling
democracy now see accountable and transparent governance as critical to the
future strengthening of the State. In the transition to an open, transparent and
accountable State, the civilian government has made some strides in its effort to
reduce corruption by reforming erstwhile opaque and largely secretive financial
management systems. It has also attempted in a rather top-down manner to
consult people on Nigeria’s ‘home-grown’ PRSP strategy – the National Economic
Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), but local ownership amongst
the people remains limited. The Government’s development reform agenda –
NEEDS – demonstrates stronger commitment through its various components -
on strengthening service delivery, ensuring accountability, acceding to a social
charter and enhancing the growth of the private sector. Also commendable is
the way the National strategy connects to state (SEEDS) and local government
level reform (LEEDS) processes. On the government side, there are clearly more
reformers - with both civil society background and greater willingness for a
deeper engagement between public policy actors and civil society activists, but
capacity, due process and sustainability remain key issues of concern. The
challenge therefore is to ensure that the ideas contained in this reform agenda
are further clarified in manner that can translate into social and economic gains
for the greater majority of Nigerians. By strengthening ‘voice’ in civil society and
seeking an independent research, analysis and monitoring of indicators and
benchmarks outlined in the reform agenda whilst improving civil actors’ ability to
engage policy makers on questions of transparency and accountability, we
envisage an exponential rise in knowledge and a concomitant impact on the
citizens’ ability to demand change.
We hope this dialogue can further expand our interest in bridging this gap
between the search for the efficient and accountable state and the legitimate
society, emphasizing not just the capacity of governments to design, formulate
and implement policies, but also the form of political regime and the process by
which authority is exercised.
For us, the most innovative aspect of our Legislative and Governance Monitoring
initiative is the bridge-building approach to governance that we take. Oftentimes
in Nigeria, the adversarial nature of relationship between government and civil
society institutions gets in the way of effective engagement. CDD has always
designed interventions, which encourage multi-stakeholder engagements without
compromising its independence whilst also addressing questions of success and
sustainability. Our partnership with the National Human Rights Commission in
organizing this dialogue further demonstrates this position. In addition, the
3

4. designed intervention connects ordinary voices to critical arenas since we are not
just concerned about enhancing capacity of government institutions alone but
also strengthening the demand side of governance so that communities can have
better access to these institutions and they in turn can be more responsive. At
the back of every step taken by this initiative are the following questions:
 How do we ensure that the right to be heard is translated into a right to
be listened to?
 What are the existing capacities and gaps, which need to be respectively
enhanced and utilised within communities and government?
 What are the monitoring and evaluation indices that will demonstrate
impact or indicate progress (indicators and verifications)?
In responding to the above questions, we hope this dialogue will assist us in
strengthening roles and relationships that already exist to enable our citizens
demand change of their rulers. The added value in a civil society monitoring
initiative such as this is the degree to which it empowers the broader citizenry to
demand change from the elected authorities by monitoring performance in an
independently verifiable manner.
I want to thank the British Council and the Department for International
Development for supporting this initiative.
On behalf of the CDD and the National Human Rights Commission, I welcome
you to this occasion and count on your contributions towards improving good
and democratic governance in Nigeria.
4