Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre

Context

Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) is a non-governmental, non-profit, advocacy, information sharing, research, and capacity building organisation.  Its mission is to strengthen the link between civil society and the legislature through advocacy and capacity building for civil society groups and policy makers on legislative processes and governance issues. CISLAC was integrated as a corporate body (CAC/IT/NO22738) with the Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) on the 28th December 2006.  Prior to this incorporation, however, CISLAC had actively been engaged in legislative advocacy work since 2005.  The organisation is also compliant with the Anti-Money Laundering Act 2007.  The Organisation reports to SCUML, any transaction that is above One thousand dollars, detailing the payee, purpose and the other KYC (Know Your Customer) requirements.  This is done on a weekly or monthly basis depending on the volume of transactions and to ensure appropriate compliance with anti-money laundering laws.
Website:
www.cislacnigeria.net
Area of Work:
Africa
Contact Person:
Chioma Kanu

Approaches to implementing Community monitoring/accountability

Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) work at both national and state levels in Nigeria with the legislature to advocate for passage of enabling laws for the citizens'. We also engage relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies for the purpose of participatory people centred policies that will affect the Nigerian citizens positively.
Similarly, it engage Civil society groups, Faith based organizations, Community based organisations, Youth based organisations and Women based organisations on issues of accountability in maternal health. Our organisation is the secretariat for Accountability on Maternal newborn and child Health in Nigeria, AMHiN, a coalition of civil society organisations working on maternal accountability in Nigeria and Chioma Kanu is the focus person.

Results 

  • We are pushing for the passage of the National health bill, which provides for the 15% health budget allocation to health- Abuja declaration, an agreement reached during heads of state summit in Nigeria, Abuja since 2010, so far only six countries in Africa have attained this benchmark excluding Nigeria that fluctuates from 6%, to 1%, and 3% etc.
  • We have also worked with civil society organisations through building capacity on how to demand accountability from the government on health and issues around women.
  • We have engaged National assembly and Ministers on health and have come up with policy briefs which we use for the purpose of advocacy campaign.

Lessons

The crucial lessons from our campaign on maternal health include:
There is a disconnect between the federal government and the state government. The Ministries and parastatal of the federal government are the policy makers while implementation is at state level but the two entities lack synergy to deliver to Nigerian people. There is no clear strategy for implementation which makes all the efforts of the federal government come to not! The states and the local governments are also not collaborating and as the saying goes, when two elephants fight, the grass suffers. In this case, the citizens, especially the women are the worse hit in this business. The role of the legislature in this whole business, is to oversight the executives, engage in quality constituency outreach to their various constituencies and also make enabling laws to protect the people. Or role then, is to act as the go between for both the legislature and the citizens, forcing both entities to meet and dialogue about fulfillment of promises made and generally providing for the people especially in the area of maternal health.