The Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) was established in February 2013 to increase citizens’ participation in governance processes in Nigeria in a way that improves the integrity of public and private sector processes.
PPDC’s three main programme areas are Procurement Governance, Nigeria Integrity Film Awards (HomeVida) and Digital Inclusion and Safer Internet (DISI).
The core focus of these programmes is to empower and mobilise more citizens to participate in government processes. One of the ways in which it encourages and stimulates citizens’ participation is through its Budeshi radio programmes which highlight the need to institutionalise open contracting practices across all stakeholder groups in Nigeria.
PPDC recognizes the importance of citizens participating in public finance processes for the provision of public goods and services that they have reason to value. It has therefore embarked on deploying procurement monitors according to their areas of interest, expertise and experience, with the primary focus on the health, education, power and energy, and oil and gas sectors. PPDC also provides advisory support on procurement reforms to other African countries (Sierra Leone and Uganda) and international agencies (UNDP and National Democratic Institute).
As one of the leading advocates and forerunners of Open Contracting on the continent, PPDC was appointed to lead the Open Contracting Working group of the African Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC). AFIC is a pan-African NGO and resource centre that promotes the right of access to information across the continent through comparative research, coordinating regional advocacy, facilitating information-sharing and capacity building. PPDC also publishes monthly newsletters showcasing open contracting initiatives and developments across Africa.
PPDC is dedicated to undertaking pro-bono judicial reviews on behalf of procurement monitors who have been denied access to information on the contracting process in the sectors where monitors are deployed.
For the past five years, PPDC has also used FOI requests made to public institutions to rank levels of compliance across these institutions. It has already ranked over 160 public and security sector institutions.
Through its two-minute episode animated series titled, “The National Cake”, PPDC is building a community of enlightened, responsive citizens both within the public and private institutions and various communities. Click here to watch the series.
PPDC also developed draft recommendations on classifying security information as a result of its projects on security sector accountability. These recommendations were shared with the Federal Ministry of Justice and the Office of the National Security Adviser, which are using them for dialogue in promoting security sector accountability.
Since 2013, along with BudgIT and Media Rights Agenda, PPDC has actively campaigned for Nigeria to join the Open Government Partnership (OGP) through the Open Alliance Coalition. This advocacy came to fruition when Nigeria became an official member of the OGP in July 2016. In recognition of this, PPDC was appointed as a member of the OGP National Steering Committee by the Federal Ministry of Justice (FMoJ), who is the coordinating ministry of the OGP in Nigeria. PPDC often interfaces with policy-makers in the Government, writes articles on OGP and participates in Twitter campaigns to garner interest and awareness on the OGP.
Budeshi (which is Hausa for “Open it”) is a dedicated site that links budget and procurement data to various public services. It is accessible to the public to interact with and make their own comparisons. In a bid to make information around public contracts and the procurement process more coherent, Budeshi was successfully used to demonstrate the value of implementing the Open Contracting Data Standards (OCDS) across the public procurement value chain. PPDC’s advocacy led to Nigeria’s public commitment to adopt the Open Contracting Data Standards at the 2015 London Anti-corruption summit. PPDC is currently implementing the Budeshi platform for organizations in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Malawi.
In 2017, PPDC embarked on citizen engagement tour themed ‘Budeshiwaka’ across five states in Nigeria (Benue, Anambra, Kano, Delta and Edo). The purpose of this tour was to hold town hall meetings in the respective states to highlight critical issues in contract implementation and to get first-hand feedback from the beneficiaries of these public projects, in this case, Public Schools and Primary Healthcare Centers (PHC). After the tour, based on feedback received, PPDC produced the “Budeshi Waka” documentary which highlights the effects of deficits projects in the various communities.
In a bid to increase citizens’ participation and accountability, PPDC launched a toll-free line – 0800BUDESHI or 08002833744 – to enable citizens report on the state of public projects within their locality and state at no cost to them. It aims to encourage citizens’ inclusion and also serves as an avenue to keep government institutions aware of abandoned projects.
In December 2016, PPDC was awarded the Anti-Corruption Defender of the Year Award by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism. The award is in recognition of its active engagement in procurement governance.
Consistent with its mission to increase citizens’ participation in governance processes, PPDC believes that the best way to reach a large multitude of citizens is through films. The Nigeria Integrity Film Awards (HomeVida) provides incentives for film-makers to promote core national and corporate values in their movies. In the last three years, PPDC has supported young film-makers to produce short movies that focus on accountability, cyberbullying, online safety, due process, business integrity, human development and peace resolution. It has also developed documentaries that inspire people to participate in governance processes.
As a result of Homevida’s work towards promoting a safer internet, PPDC created the Digital Inclusion and Safer Internet (DISI) programme. It seeks to promote universal access to ICTs for sustained individual and economic development; and for full participation in society in a way that preserves the safety and freedom of the internet. DISI also seeks to preserve internet freedom by encouraging and institutionalizing safer internet practices; through self-regulation and consideration for other people online. PPDC has successfully trained over 15 000 primary and secondary students across three states (Abuja, Lagos and Ibadan) on critical issues about being safe on the internet and celebrate the Safer Internet Day in all 36 states of the federation
PPDC has successfully worked and partnered with various international donor organisations, including the World Bank, Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), MacArthur Foundation, African Freedom of Information Center (AFIC), Omidyar Network, Open Contracting Partnership, Google, USAID and UNODC, as well as local organisations such as BudgIT, Connected Development, Enough is Enough (EIE), FOI Coalition, Bureau for Public Procurement(BPP), Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), National Film Corporation (NFC), National Film and Video Censors Board, and Security Exchange Commission (SEC),
Challenges impacting PPDC’s work include sustaining citizen’s interest, the slow response from the Nigerian government on policy reforms, and the ongoing need for funding.
Contact details:
Tel: +234 706 661 8896
WWW: http://procurementmonitor.org/ppdc / http://homevida.org / http://www.budeshi.ng
Twitter: @ppmonitorNG / @homevida / @disi_nigeria
Facebook: Procurement Monitor / HomeVida / DISI
Linkedin: Public and Private Development Centre
This is the thirteenth NGO profile of my 2018 #NGOs4Africa Campaign.
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