The National Coordinator of the Nigeria Open Government Partnership and Director, Reforms Coordination Department, Ministry of Budget and National Planning, Dr Ann Nzegwu, said that Nigeria made great strides in the global OGP community within the implementation of National Action Plan (NAP) II.
The Director made this known while delivering her opening remarks at the third quarter, 2021 OGP Technical Working Group Meeting on Monday (September 27, 2021) in Abuja.
According to the Director, Nigeria won a seat to serve a second tenure in the OGP global steering committee which would commence on the 1st of October, 2021 and run for three years.
“In a related development, the global steering committee is organizing the 10th year anniversary of the OGP and has requested for OGP implementing countries to identify its most impactful commitments under NAP I for award consideration.
“The Governance and Leadership Committee set up a 12-man committee that worked on Nigeria’s entry for the award, which result will be announced at the 2021 virtual global summit scheduled to hold in South Korea in December, 2021,” she stated.
Dr Nzegwu said that the commitment of the OGP to the civil society was important as it had been demonstrated in recent efforts to ensure that the civil society was aware of the internal mechanisms and objectives of the State’s Fiscal Transparency Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) Programme for Results (PforR).
She explained that the SFTAS was an incentivized Federal Government’s programme designed to support the Fiscal Sustainability Plan (FSP) and the OGP at the sub-national level.
Dr Nzegwu said that the National Secretariat’s support to the OGP processes at the National and Sub-national levels was continuous.
“To meet demands as encapsulated in the second OGP National Action Plan, we are working to infuse citizens’ active participation across the seven thematic areas that the OGP seeks to deliver,” she said.
Also speaking at the event, a representative of the Civil Society Organization, Abiodun Bayewu, said that the CSO was committed to making meaningful contributions to the fulfillment of their obligations to the NAP II, adding that for Nigeria to continue to excel at the global level, the commitments of both the Government and the CSO must be working.
Bayewu pointed out that the countries that had chosen to implement their National Action Plan since the 10 years of the OGP were countries truly committed to democracy.
She expressed optimism that Nigeria would be one if lip service to commitments was avoided.