How Centre LSD Helped Turn Public Demands into Government Action

By Monday Osasah

An approved project can look impressive in a government budget. But what does that approval mean to the people waiting for the service?

Who checks whether the money arrives? Who asks why a contractor is using poor materials? And who ensures that women and other people often excluded from community decisions have a say in what gets built?

These questions were central to the Voice to the People (V2P) project, supported by UKAID through Christian Aid. For the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development (Centre LSD), the task was to help communities acquire the knowledge, organisation and access needed to demand better governance.

The intervention spanned South-East and Kaduna States and combined research, advocacy, partner development, and community accountability approaches to implement the project.

Giving Community Priorities a Route into Government

In Anambra State, V2P initially worked in 48 communities across 12 local government areas. Its approach helped residents identify shared priorities and present them through Community Charters of Demand.

The importance of this process went beyond producing a document. It created an opportunity to discuss whose needs mattered, what should come first, and which government institution could respond.

The partnership brought together organisations with different strengths. The Local Justice, Development and Peace Commissions provided trusted community relationships. Development in Practice contributed a women’s rights approach. Centre LSD, Civil Rights Concern and the State Accountability and Voice Initiative helped connect local concerns with state authorities and the media.

For Centre LSD, this connection was essential. A community could identify a serious problem but still struggle to reach the institution with the power to resolve it.

Making Evidence Useful to Citizens

Centre LSD brought research into that struggle for responsiveness.

The Centre did 11 research reports addressing budgets, procurement, due process, internally generated revenue, Paris Club refunds, bailout funds, regional development and local government elections.

The purpose was practical: give citizens and civil society organisations evidence they could use when engaging public officials. Research findings fed advocacy and stakeholder discussions, while partner support strengthened communities’ ability to monitor projects and follow up on commitments.

One example was the 2015 policy dialogue on the Anambra State budget and emerging issues, held in Awka. Dr. Otive Igbuzor called for greater government accountability, while Dr. Uzochukwu Amakom presented the budget analysis. The discussion connected public spending to the conditions citizens were experiencing.

A budget, after all, is a statement of choices. Citizens need to understand those choices if they are to influence them.

Building a Network That Could Ask Difficult Questions

Together with Civil Rights Concern, Centre LSD helped establish and nurture the Community Empowerment Network (COMEN).

The network connected communities and monitors across local government areas. With Centre LSD’s support, members checked whether funding matched government commitments and whether construction met contract specifications.

In Ezinifite, Nnewi South, access to contract information helped expose substandard materials in a health-facility project. Monitoring contributed to correcting the quantity and quality of materials.

In Onitsha South, COMEN supported community demands and engagement over double taxation.

These examples showed the value of collective organisation. Communities could share knowledge, learn from one another and pursue questions that might otherwise have remained unanswered.

Christian Aid also identified Centre LSD’s role in linking community concerns to policy and budget engagement at higher levels of government.

Strengthening the People Behind the Work

Community accountability requires organisations that can manage their own work effectively.

Centre LSD in 2015 facilitated report-writing training for partners in Anambra and mentored them on project management, team building, proposal development and internal-control policies.

These were practical investments in the people responsible for sustaining engagement. Partners needed to document problems accurately, organise their teams and present a clear case to government.

Centre LSD also collaborated with traditional rulers and officials, increasing COMEN’s visibility and supporting women’s participation in local decision-making in Anambra, Enugu and Kaduna.

Carrying Accountability Beyond the Community

The latter work extended into wider governance questions.

On 21 September 2017, Centre LSD convened a civil society and media roundtable in Kaduna under the V2P project. It mobilised North-West stakeholders around local government autonomy during the constitutional review process.

The concern was directly connected to community development: local institutions need the authority and resources to respond to citizens.

Centre LSD also convened a fiscal transparency discussion on National Assembly salaries, pensions, and emoluments.

Participants questioned former governors and deputy governors receiving state pensions while serving as federal legislators, bringing public attention to the choices surrounding political remuneration and development spending.

What Changed—and What Still Had to Be Watched

The report captured that community demands generated 52 approved education budget items from 23 communities and 77 health items from 29 communities. Requests from 22 communities were accepted into the agriculture budget.

Social development allocations rose from 12 per cent in 2014 to 21 per cent in 2015, with the report associating part of that change with government responses to community demands.

Christian Aid also reported that DFID awarded V2P an A++ evaluation score. These were achievements of the wider partnership and participating communities.

Approval, however, was only one stage. Citizens still needed to follow the money, inspect the work and establish whether services improved.

That continuing scrutiny was at the heart of Centre LSD’s contribution.

When a community can access a contract, question a deduction, articulate its priorities and obtain a response, governance becomes something people can participate in and assess.

V2P helped create those opportunities and demonstrated why citizens’ voices must remain part of public decision-making long after a project ends.

Monday Osasah is the Executive Director, African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development.