1st CBI Webinar: Highlights & Excerpts
Some weeks back during the total lockdown phase across Lagos, Ogun States and Abuja, the story of an elderly woman (probably in her early sixties) went viral which echoed sympathy across the nation. The said woman who was engaged in her business before the lockdown, found herself in a position where she could barely feed herself and her family and out of frustration and desperation to survive, she mentioned she was willing to prostitute herself to raise money to feed her family. The outcry from the citizens was overwhelming and quite a number of concerned people who heard her story where moved to donate money and other resources. This woman belongs to the class of the vulnerable. Did she get a pack of the palliatives as allegedly distributed by the Government?
Recent events in Nigeria have exposed the inefficiencies in our Data Management system especially in the area of identifying and capturing the vulnerable in our society, their numbers and location. How do we plan adequately when we do not have accurate data indicating the basic information of the citizens? All over the world, policy makers use evidence-based research for planning, evaluating and formulating policies.
This and many more prompted the 1st CBI webinar series by the Convention on Business Integrity with the first one themed, THE CRUCIAL ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN NATION BUILDING: CASE STUDY OF DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN NIGERIA, which held on May 28th, 2020. The objective of the webinar was to bring together relevant stakeholders in the Civil society to lead the advocacy on the issue by engaging and influencing policy makers on the issue as well as collate and crystallize the ideas to influence existing legislation as well as propose necessary legislation for purposes of nation building. The issues and recommendations of the webinar are contained in a communique below:
