West Africa Civil Society Institute with support from Ford Foundation has held an inception workshop for participants made up of 10 each from Nigeria and Ghana, with 5 from Senegal.
The meeting held at Mensvic Grand Hotel Accra, Ghana was aimed at building the capacity of the CSOs in civic space across the West Africa subregion.
In her opening Remarks, the Executive Director Nana Afadzinu, who welcomed the participants gave an overview of the work of the organization and what was expected from the participants.
She noted that West Africa subregion of recent has had coups with adverse effects on the civic space.
Resource person and Expert, Oyebisi Babatunde Oluseyi, the Executive Director NNNGO made a presentation on contextualizing civic space in west Africa: Interrogating the Rapidly Changing Context, Dynamics, Emerging Issues of Restrictions and Threat to Civil Liberties.
On her part, Tinuola Makinde the CRS- Hub Project Officer made a presentation on the civic space thematic focus activities and areas.
Each country made an analysis of the civic space in their various States on shrinking civic space and constraints to civil societys effective response.
The session gave participants the opportunity to collectively identify key threats to civic space and enabling environment.
Earlier, the Head Policy Influencing and Advocacy , WACSI, Omolara Balogun said the CSR-hub for West Africa is part of a global movement ‘Weaving Resilience’ seeking to build institutional and financial resilience of civil society in the Global South.
The weaving resilience movement is a $80,000,000 initiative launched with the support of Ford Foundation on the 4th October.
She said three countries from west Africa, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal are attending the meeting and hoped to increase to other countries as funds become available.
She said the project would build the capacity of participating CSOs to increase access to the Civic Space in their respective countries
Participants from Nigeria include, Mr. Ben Maigari of the Africa Media Development Foundation, AMDF.
