THE FUTURE OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN NIGERIA: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES

A KEYNOTE ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE CLOSE OUT PROGRAMME OF SCALE TITLED SCALE LEGACY SUMMIT:  CELEBRATING OUR IMPACT, OPENING NEW DOORS HELD AT NAF CONFERENCE CENTRE, ABUJA ON 25TH SEPTEMBER 2024 By Otive Igbuzor, PhD, Founding Executive Director, African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development (Centre LSD), Abuja.

Protocols

1. INTRODUCTION

The challenge of development is arguably one of the greatest challenges that has dominated world history. Human beings have always been concerned about how to improve their condition of living and better confront the forces of nature and the environment. Over the years, a lot of progress has been made on how to deal with the challenges of development and improve the standard and condition of living of human beings. Development theorists and practitioners are agreed that partnership among government, private sector and civil society is the most effective way to achieve sustainable economic and social benefits and achieve the sustainable development goals.[i]

Meanwhile, it has been recognised that the three sectors: Government, private sector and civil society have great roles to play in the development of society and that this needs to be done in partnership.[ii] This is what is called the trisector model. But it must be understood that the three sectors have different motivations, approaches and experiences. The motivation for government is provision of services to all citizens; the motivation of the private sector is profit while the motivation of civil society is the protection of specialised groups and the vulnerable (the poor, persons with disability, persons living with HIV/AIDS, women, children, trafficked persons etc).

The approach of government is utilisation of bureaucracy with emphasis on the political rather than the economic and rational. Therefore, decision making is dominated by administrative or satisficing decision-making approaches rather than rational decision-making approaches. The approach of the private sector is dominated by economics and market forces influenced by supply and demand. The approach of civil society is to target special groups such as the poor and advocate for grants and subsidies. The experiences of the three sectors are also different. In government, we have experienced inefficiency in providing services and poor performance of public enterprises even in sectors where the private sector is making huge profits. In the private sector, we have seen that the private sector has been unable to become the engine of growth in Africa. Instead, they have remained parasitic and dependent on government contracts. In the civil society, we have seen documented experiences of the poor and vulnerable; the commitment, knowledge and resilience of the poor with several good examples of pilots that are never scaled up.

See Keynote Address

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[i] World Bank (2000), Working Together: The World Bank’s Partnership with Civil Society. Washington DC, World Bank.

[ii] Igbuzor, O (2021), Contemporary Issues on Development and Change in Nigeria. Abuja, Risafu Publishers.