STRATEGY FOR STATE-THIRD SECTOR PARTNERSHIP FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: A WORKING MODEL

STRATEGY FOR STATE-THIRD SECTOR PARTNERSHIP FOR
SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA:
A WORKING MODEL
BY
TANKO AHMED fwc
Senior Fellow (Security & Strategic Studies)
National Institute for Policy & Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru – Jos
ta_mamuda@yahoo.com - 08037031744

State-Third Sector Partnership

ABSTRACT
• Confronting complex challenges without strategy
amounts to wishful thinking and chaotic
approach to solving problems.
• The third sector has emerged as worthy partner
in progress for public and private sectors in
sustainable development.
• This paper discusses strategy for state-third
sector partnership for sustainable community
development in Nigeria with a view to
constructing a working model.

KEY TERMS
 Third Sector
 Sustainable Development
 Partnership
 Community Based Organization
 Hadejia Ina Mafita Initiative
 Working Model

Background
The ‘third sector’ strategically occupies “… an
intermediary space between business and
government where private energy can be
deployed for public good ….”
- Jim Joseph (2017), President, Council on Foundations.
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/third-sector.html

An Emergent Force
• There has been a growing interest in
decentralizing developmental efforts as the third
sector strives to amplify strong and diverse voices
and influence programmes and policy decisions.
• The age of sustainable development is here, with
emphasis on effective partnership among the
various stakeholders and components of modern
society.
• The third sector is an emergent force driving
development beyond the reach or fringes of
public and private sector activities.

A Common Denominator
The Sustainable Development Goals bear
inclusiveness as common denominator to all 17
components indicating decentralization of
programmes to the grassroots/community level
(UNDP, 2015).

Literature
• Literature on inclusiveness and sustainable
community development take aim at
decentralization as reflected decades ago as
background to current moves for ‘state-third
sector’ partnership.
• Conyers (1986) describes decentralization as the
transfer of authority to plan, make decision and
manage functions from higher to lower level.
• In this wise, a systematic decentralization of
authority and responsibility to community level
would give certain powers and resources to
handle development challenges without undue
recourse to local or state authorities.

Theorem
• McQuaid (2000) explores some theoretical
and policy issues and establishes that the
promotion of development programmes
requires participation of community based
organisations.
• That there are overall advantages for a
partnership approach in which policies and
programmes are download upper-lower
fashion by government and uploaded
lower-upper injection by grassroots by
community based organisations.

Basic Proposition
• This basic proposition allows for discourse on
state-third sector mutual and beneficial
partnership in sustainable community
development.
• A working model is adapted, explained and
corresponded to the tenets of developing and
operating strategy for public (or state)-third
sector partnership.

Statement of the Problem
• The National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies
(NIPSS) had observed failure of successive
administrations in Nigeria to fully mobilize the
grassroots for sustainable national development (NIPSS,
2002:2).
• The Report reviewed community development
interventions programmes since 1972 and concluded
the failure in this regarded resulted from inadequate
planning and lack of coordination hinting on lack of
strategy for decentralization or functional relationship
the state and communities.
• That development programmes were planned and
executed without the input and participation of the
end users or recipient communities.

Points to Ponder
• The universal attention from the renewed global
development goals graduating from the
Millennium Development Goals (MDAs) to the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has
further renewed hope and opportunities for
state-third sector partnership.
• To proceed from this point, there is the need to
conceptualize and correlate some key terms;
propose and describe the strategy for state-third
sector partnership; determine and construct a
working model; and suggest the way forward.

Strategy
• Strategy is a carefully devised plan of
action to achieve a goal, or the art of
developing or carrying out such a plan.
• It involves the interaction of ends (goals
or objectives, means), resources, and
ways or strategic plan of action for
utilizing available means (Owens, 2016).

Strategic Planning
• Strategic planning is a way of defining strategy
or direction and making appropriate decision
on allocating resources and control
mechanisms for implementation (Mintzberg &
Quinn, 1996).
• Strategy, through strategic planning, is
executed the 3Cs of Collaboration, Cooperation
and Coordination among stakeholders.
• This paper discusses the strategy for state-third
sector partnership.

State
• State is a political entity under a system of government
often referred to as a country.
• Theories of state characteristically expose functional
responsibilities for the general well-being of the people
seen in the process of development (Flint & Taylor,
2007).
• A government is the administrative bureaucracy of a
State that controls the apparatus of governance known
as the ‘public sector’ which also relates with other
‘sectors’ like the ‘private sector’.
• Activities and functionalities not within the public and
the private sectors are considered as the ‘third sector’.

Third Sector
• Third Sector is a term referring to organizations
like voluntary and community groups not listed as
public or private sector.
• They are registered organizations such as
associations, self-help groups, community based
outfits, social enterprises, mutual and co-
operatives.
• They are generally called ‘Third Sector
Organisations’ or TSOs which are independent of
government, value driven and basically people-
oriented at the community or grassroots level.

Third Sector Uniqueness
• The unique immediate benefits of TSOs include
understanding of people’s needs, closeness to the
people, ability to deliver outcomes, innovation,
and performance.
• TSOs are the last Bus Stops for implementation of
policies, programmes and projects of both the
public and private sectors.
• They speak out for people and their needs to the
public sector and wider society (NOA, 2010)

Partnership
• Partnership is the relationship between two or more
entities that are involved in the same activity.
• A formal partnership is a legal relationship among
partners recognised by Law and based on agreement
to carry out ventures for mutual benefits and shared
responsibilities (Murray, 2010).
• It is involves acts and processes of affiliation,
collaboration, cooperation and coordination which are
also tenets to strategic planning or ‘strategic
relationship.

State-Third Sector Partnership
• Thus, a partnership between the State and
Third Sector is considered as a ‘strategic
relationship’ between government and third
sector.
• For example, a State-Third Sector partnership
is driven by acts of affiliation, collaboration,
cooperation and coordination as partners in
progress seen in strategy for ‘sustainable
community development’.

Sustainable Development
• The term sustainable development was coined
and used by the Brundtland Commission as
development process that meets the needs of
the present without compromising the ability
of future generations to meet their own needs
(UN, 1987; Smith & Rees, 1998).
• According to Hasna (2007), sustainability is a
process which tells of a development of all
aspects of human life affecting sustenance, a
word often used in too many situations today.

‘Everything is Sustainable’
• There are phrases like sustainable development,
sustainable growth, sustainable economies,
sustainable societies, and sustainable agriculture,
etc.
• Temple (1992) concludes that ‘Everything is
sustainable’.
• Thus, sustainable development signifies the
optimization and impact of the development
process at grassroots or community level known
as ‘community level’ in a continuous manner.

What is a Community
• A community refers to a group of interacting
people, possibly living in close proximity
sharing some common values, with attributes
of social cohesion, within a shared
geographical location generally in social units
larger than household (OECD, 2009).
• There are numerous definitions generated by
Garcia, et el, (1999) to help establish a
working concepts.

Some Working Concepts of Community
• A group of people sharing characteristics and
interests that live within a larger society, from which
those features distinguish it.
• The sense in which one belongs to a net of mutually
helpful relationships which one can trust in and
which do not result in permanent feelings of
loneliness that would cause one to act or to adopt a
life style that distinguish anxiety and a predisposition
to a more destructive subsequent anguish.
• A community can be conceived in three dimensions,
as a place where the physical environment is thought
of as natural or as artificial; as a group of people, like
a population, and; as a social system.
Garcia, et el, (1999)

Community Development
• Community development is as old as human
society and equally subjected to change and
reforms in the process of transformation from
one state to another.
• The United Nations Terminology Database
(UNTERM) defines community development
as “… a process where members came
together to take collective action and
generate solutions to common problems”
(UNTERM, 2017).

Potentials of Community Development
• Community development holds potentials for
synergy within by uniting people and activities
at local level, and beyond by associating in
partnership with larger entities of wider
society.
• The process is organized and run by
community based organisations (CBOs) for
purposes of development and delivery of
strategy or set of projects or operations.

Community Based Organization
• Community Based Organisations work at the
grassroots for improve of people and their
immediate environment.
• They are engaged in series of activities at the
community level aimed at bringing about
desired improvement in the general wellbeing
of individuals, groups, neighbourhood, and
wider society.
• A CBO is representative of community(s) and
provides services at local level of development
process.

CBOs as Partners-in-Progress
• They play important role in providing effective
services at the grassroots, making them
worthy partners-in-progress with other agency
involved in service delivery, particular the
State or Government.
• An example of a functional CBO is the Hadejia
Ina Mafita Initiative based in Hadejia, Jigawa
State, Nigeria.

Hadejia Ina Mafita Profile
• Hadejia Ina Mafita Initiative, literarily translates
into ‘Hadejia Which Way Out’, is a CBO based in
Hadejia, Jigawa State, Nigeria with Corporate
Affairs registration number serving the eight local
government areas of Hadejia Emirate.
• Its membership includes immediate residents of
Hadejia Emirate and its people living outside in
other parts of Nigeria and abroad.
• Its activities cover general service delivery and
serving as common voice of the people – a CBO
Working Model.

Working Model
• In conceptual sense, models are used to help
us know and understand the subject matter
they represent.
• The concepts or related concepts are formed
after a conceptualization process in the mind.
• They are necessary means employed in
thinking and solution of problems (Duan & Cruz,
2011).
• This paper explains working models in
progressive format of conceptual, scientific
and entity relationship models.

Entity Relationship Model
• It includes the various entities, their attributes and
relationships, plus the constraints governing the
conceptual integrity of the structural model
elements comprising that problem domain.
• It may also include a number of conceptual views,
where each view is pertinent to a particular subject
area of the domain or to a particular subset of the
domain model which is of interest to a stakeholder of
the domain model.
• Like entity-relationship models, domain models can
be used to model concepts or to model real world
objects and events, like ‘working models’ of
functional relationship seen as proposed strategy for
state-third section partnership in sustainable
development in Nigeria.

STRATEGY FOR STATE-THIRD
SECTOR PARTNERSHIP

The Big Society Principles
• The universal penetrative principles of the ‘Big
Society’ earlier cited “… is an English political
discourse with different policy developments
now taking place within the devolved
administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland” (Alcock, 2012:1).
• An aspect of this situation is its ICT-enabled
conduct in which administrative costs are
drastically reduced to barest minimum as well as
the maximum penetration of grassroots.
• This tendency which is universal can be utilized in
strategy formulation and implementation of
state-third sector partnership in Nigeria.

A Case at Hand
• A case at hand is the Hadejia Ina Mafita Initiative
which was initially formed, established and still
run effectively from ICT-powered platforms of
mobile phones, Internet and the social media.
• The template for adaptation and application of
ICT platforms has already been discussed across
decades including demarcation, effective
planning and execution, and recognition of
spatial diversities.

The Partnership Strategy
• The strategy for State-Third Sector partnership for
sustainable community development in Nigeria will
primarily requires expansion and upgrading of ICT
infrastructure to enable the formation and running
of community based organisations.
• The government will use working models like the
Hadejia Ina Mafita Initiative to enlighten and
mobilize other communities to organize and conduct
development activities from grassroots and
community level.
• This strategy would not only actualize healthy and
strong relationship between government and the
governed, it will set the momentum for faster,
cheaper, easier and cost effective approach to overall
national development in Nigeria.

A CASE STUDY OF A CBO
‘THE HADEJIA INA MAFITA INITIATIVE’
AS CONSTRUCT OF WORKING MODEL

HIMI Administrative Structure
• The Hadejia Ina Mafita Initiative was founded in
December 2011 on the online platform of
Facebook social media.
• It was incorporated on the 7th December 2015
with Corporate Affairs Commission Registration
Number CAC/IT/No. 83064.
• The organisation covers the eight local
government areas of the Hadejia Emirate, Jigawa
State, Nigeria.
• It is physically organized into a headquarter office
with a Chairman, Secretary and EXCO members in
Hadejia city.

Vision, Mission and Core Values
• It has eight Coordinators in charge of the eight local
government targeting all accessible communities in the
Emirate.
• The CBO has its vision of creating a supportive,
sustainable and collaborative platform; and mission for
promotion of economic, social, cultural and
environmental progress.
• Its core values uphold integrity, sincerity, justice, peace,
transparency, solidarity and democracy.
• By these listed tenets, the organisation invests itself a
developmental partner unit relevant for local, national
and global ascendancy.

Active Membership
• With an active membership of 6,752 on Social
Media alone, it also has representative members
of all accessible communities in the area.
• Its membership spreads beyond geographical
location, age, gender, social status, profession,
and all walks of life at home and abroad.
• The organisation holds conferences called
‘Muhawarah’ on issues of concern as they occur,
with the aim of finding immediate solutions
overseen by a Strategic Committee.

HIMI Activities
• Issues treated include agriculture, security,
social services, local radio and television
stations, electricity supply, poverty reduction,
vocational training, refugee welfare,
recruitment and hordes of other projects and
programmes.
• In a nutshell, the Hadejia Ina Mafita Initiative
is a candidate for state-third sector
partnership and a working model in the realm
of strategy formulation and implementation in
matters at hand.

Enabling Policy Environment
• The ‘Big Society’ idea of penetrative development
driven by the Information Communication and
Telecommunication (ICT) revolution makes it easier
and more practical for enabling policy environment
for actualization of sustainable community
development.
• The universal attention from the renewed global
development goals graduating from the Millennium
Development Goals (MDAs) to the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) has further renewed
hope and opportunities for state-third sector
partnership.

The Way Forward
• A functional community based organisation,
Hadejia Ina Mafita Initiative, provides a
working model for application of partnership
principles and benefits in a mutual state-third
sector relationship.
• The way forward is for government to initiate
moves to incorporate the activities of
community based organisations into its wider
national development strategy formulation
and implementation.

Paper Summary
• This paper discusses strategy for state-third sector
partnership for sustainable community development in
Nigeria with a view to constructing a working model.
• The partnership theory provides grounds for a
conceptual descriptive discourse for identification of
the intermediary space between government and
business where community based organizations can be
deployed for sustainable community development.
• A functional community based organisation, Hadejia
Ina Mafita Initiative, provides a working model for
application of partnership principles and benefits in a
mutual state-third sector relationship.

Conclusion
• The paper established a strategic gap responsible
for hindering development from reaching the
grassroots and strongly recommends the
engagement of community based organisations
by government as partners for sustainable
community development in Nigeria.
• The paper concludes that for effective sustainable
development at community level, the existing
larger ‘entity’ of Nigeria needs to be re-defined
into a framework for provision, maintenance and
consolidation of service delivery by all tiers of
development agencies aiming at the grassroots,
hinting on systematic decentralization.

Recommendations
• The paper strongly recommends that government
should embark on building relevant infrastructure
for mobilizing and incorporating community
based organisations into its larger framework for
national development.
• The paper also calls on communities to take cue
from the Hadejia Ina Mafita Initiative to mobilize
and organise community development effort to
contribute as well as benefit from an integrated
system powered by technology platforms.

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