The British Council has held a programme to discuss pertinent issues that affect the effectiveness and impact of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Nigeria, especially the provision of “an enabling and conducive” regulatory environment for the organisations to operate in the country.
The three-day conference began Tuesday in Abuja with the support of the European delegation to Nigeria, ECOWAS and the Agents for Citizen-Driven Transformation (ACT) programme.
Attendees included representatives of civil society groups, government (regulatory agencies, legislators, etc), development partners, donor community, private sector, opinion leaders and other interest groups.
In his keynote address, the Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission, Garba Abubakar, said CSOs are increasingly becoming more important because of the role they play at the global level on issues of environmental sustainability and human rights which are currently in the front banner of the global dialogue.
“This indicates that Civil Society Organizations are expected to play a more active role in achieving environmental sustainability than the government.”
However, Mr Abubakar said, “experience has shown that corporate governance is very minimal or sometimes totally lacking in most of the CSOs.”
“This is not in the overall interest of the country,” he said.
He further noted that no country practises a “100 per cent self-regulatory framework for CSOs.”
“The quantum or amount of regulation would always depend on how well the CSOs themselves are organised and how well AML/CFT frameworks have been incorporated into their self-regulatory rules or regulations.”
Mr Abubakar added that the CAC is willing to partner with all CSOs not only to enable them to achieve their objectives but strike the proper balance between the two extremes of total self-regulation and state control.
“In the interim, there is a need to radically improve corporate governance in the sector,” he said.
