Three Non Government Organisations on Thursday in Lafia, engaged stakeholders from Nasarawa communities on the use of Community Development Plan (CDP) to facilitate inclusive budgeting.
The CDP is a document where the priority needs of a community are harmonised for inclusion in government budget.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting was organised by the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) Mada Hills in collaboration with Association of Small Scale Agro Producers in Nigeria (ASSAPIN) and Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (OXFAM) Nigeria.
Mr Ango Adamu, Executive Secretary, YMCA Mada Hills said the engagement was a review of the training which began since February 2020 in the state on the CDP concept.
“CDP is a concept used in civilised worlds for inclusive budgeting process. We want to encourage community stakeholders to see how they can participate in a democratic setup and make their voices heard through budgeting.
“So, today’s meeting is to see how well those trained have been able to adopt the CDP concept, to know how many people were captured in terms of harmonising the needs of their communities,” he said.
Also speaking, Mr Jonathan Joshua, President of ASSAPIN said the review was to ascertain the level of understanding and participation of the actors from the various selected communities.
NAN reports that the stakeholders included religious leaders, traditional rulers, women leaders and youth representatives drawn from nine electoral wards in Lafia, Kokona and Akwanga Local Government Areas.
Some of the participants told NAN that the training on CDP was quite educative and would go a long way to enhance the development of their communities through appropriate budgeting to address specific identified needs.
Mr Aliyu Ibrahim from Ninkoro Ward in Kokona Local Government Area said the training has shown that CDP could be very productive in drawing up the most pressing needs of a community.
“It helps us list out our plans and prioritise our most pressing needs before we present it to the government for inclusion in the budget,” he said.
Also, Mrs Agnes Gabriel, another community stakeholder from Akurba Ward in Lafia Local Government Area applauded the NGOs for the training on proper use of CDP for inclusive budgeting and budget tracking.
“We have started getting used to the CDP concept on how to gather our needs and prioritise the most important ones.
“So the knowledge on how we can participate in what is budgeted for our community and how to present what we want in the budget through the CDP is an eye opener.
“The CDP has offered us a way of presenting our requests to the government in a proper way,” she added.
Another stakeholder from Ningo Baher Ward in Akwanga LGA, Mr Amos Wakayi, said the training had exposed them to their rights and how to lobby the government to adopt inclusive budgeting.
“When a budget is being prepared through the CDP, we can say to the government that we have a document of our priority needs that we want included in the budget and if the government sees that we are united, they will grant us our requests,” he said. (NAN)
