Africa-Press – Nigeria. Akwa Ibom youths have called on governments at all levels and their agencies to make public their budgets, project timelines, and expenditures in order to ensure full transparency and accountability in development interventions.
They made the call in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State’s capital, on Friday during a one-day workshop tagged “Youth-led Stakeholders Engagement on Transparency and Accountability for Improved Development in Host Communities,” organized by the Clement Isong Foundation (CIF) in partnership with ActionAid Nigeria.
In a communique endorsed by the Executive Director of CIF and the Programmes Manager of ActionAid Nigeria, Elkanah Oluyori and Celestine Okwudili Odo respectively, on Monday, the youths called for targeted funding for “youth-led monitoring initiatives to enhance independent tracking of development projects in affected communities.”
The communique added that community-based monitoring mechanisms, real-time reporting, and feedback channels for project implementation across LGAs would go a long way in promoting development and accountability.
It also called on corporate organizations and Host Community Development Trusts (HCDT) to adopt transparent reporting practices, including quarterly publication of project status updates, procurement processes, and community-benefit allocations, prioritizing participatory project design and ensuring that youth, women, and marginalized groups are actively involved in needs assessments and decision-making.
It further stated, “There should be a scale-up of civic education and capacity-building programmes to equip young people with skills to monitor public spending and corporate commitments. Consolidate partnerships for evidence-based advocacy, using data from community monitoring to influence policy and corporate behaviour.”
On environmental concerns in oil-producing areas, the communique emphasized the need for post-production clean-up services, stating that oil-producing companies should take responsibility for environmental restoration after extraction activities.
It therefore called for a stronger regulatory framework to enforce the clean-up responsibilities of extractive industries in the communities.
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