The support will help local group that promotes accountability in rural communities
Follow The Money [www.followthemoneyng.org], a non-profit initiative of Connected Development [CODE] has been awarded a one-year grant of US$100,000 ( NGN19, 894, 994 million) by Omidyar Network, mainly towards the cost of their projects in local communities which includes stakeholders meetings, focus group discussions, travel support, and visualization.
Founded in 2012 by Hamzat Lawal & Oludotun Babayemi, Follow The Money uses traditional offline engagement methods and technology tools to track government and international aid spending at the local level. In 2012, the initiative was able to save the lives of about 1,500 children in Bagega, Zamfara state who needed urgent medical attention for lead poisoning. And after the 2012 flooding in Nigeria, the group was able to track 17 Billion NGN allocated for intervention and document the impact on affected rural communities. In 2015, the group’s activities convinced the federal government of Nigeria to change its controversial US$49.8 million (NGN 9.2 billion) clean cookstoves plan and ensure accountability.
“Foreign aid and government spending should be grounded in how the spending affects local community realities. Government programmes that track the impact of funds in local contexts are still remarkably rare,” said Hamzat Lawal, Chief Executive of Connected Development.
Omidyar Network’s grant comes through the philanthropic investment firm’s Governance & Citizen Engagement initiative, which works to build stronger and more open societies by increasing government responsiveness and citizen participation.
In the past, Follow The Money had received grants from The Indigo Trust, Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) through her Open Societic Initiative led by CITIC Dakar, Open Knowledge Foundation, Heinrich Boell Foundation in Nigeria and The European Union.
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[In Abuja – Nigeria, for Connected Development/Follow The Money ,OludotunBabayemi +234 09 291 7545 or/and oludotun@connecteddevelopment.org]
[In Abuja – Nigeria, for Connected Development/Follow The Money, Abdulmalik Fahd, +2349052546234 or/and abdulmalik@connecteddevelopment.org]
For more information about Follow The Money, please visit http://followthemoneyng.org
For more information about Omidyar Network , please visit https://omidyar.com
Editor’s Note:
Follow The Money is an initiative of Connected Development [CODE] that advocates, tracks, and visualize funds meant for local communities. The Team is made up of Researchers, Data Analysts, Campaigners, Journalists, Legal Practitioners, Activists, Information Managers, Students, and Academia & Development Consultants.
CODE is a non-government organization whose mission is to improve access to information and empower local communities in Africa. We strengthen local communities by creating platforms for dialogue, enabling informed debate, and building capacities of marginalized communities which ensure social and economic progress while promoting transparency and accountability.