By Bassey Udo
The implementation, monitoring and review of the ARISE Agenda must be driven by fiscal and policy transparency as the core principles, Policy Alert, a civil society organisation working to promote economic and ecological justice in West Africa, has advised the Akwa Ibom State government.
ARISE Agenda is an acronym for Agricultural Revolution, Rural Development, Infrastructural Maintenance and Advancement, Security Management, and Educational Advancement representing the sectoral development blueprint of the Governor Umo Eno-led state government.
The agenda was launched after a four-day Akwa Ibom Dialogue in 2023 that brought together citizens and experts to make inputs into the administration’s medium-term policy framework encompassing fiscal plans, policies and programmes on key sectors of state’s economy.
Speaking on Thursday in Uyo at a one-day meeting to review the two-year implementation of the ARISE Agenda, the Executive Director of Policy Alert, Tijah Bolton-Akpan, said although the idea of a development agenda based on the citizens’ input during the 2023 Akwa Ibom Dialogue was commendable, not publishing and formally making the draft ARISE Agenda openly available to the people two years after was not good enough.
“We (civil society and the media) actively contributed to the process of developing the Arise Agenda. We celebrated the initiative as an expression of the state government’s commitment to participatory governance. However, it is regrettable that two years after the draft ARISE Agenda, the final document that came out of that process has not been formally published, or made accessible to the public.
“Without the public being given open access to this important document, citizens cannot effectively track the implementation of the policies and programmes contained in the agenda, monitor performance of the government or provide informed feedback from the people. Inviting stakeholders to discuss a document they have not seen does not only engender lack of trust, but it reduces the confidence to participate to mere tokenism and handout,” Bolton-Akpan said.
While commending the state government for undertaking an independent mid-term evaluation of the implementation of the blueprint document and creating a public platform to share findings, he urged the state government to ensure that openness and transparency became the core principles in the implementation, monitoring and review of the ARISE agenda to instill confidence and trust in the people.
“The mid-term review meeting is a timely opportunity for the people to reflect on the state’s development trajectory and conduct an honest self appraisal of its implementation. It signals a significant shift from ARISE as a socio-political mantra to ARISE as a measurable development framework. But making openness and transparency the core principles in the implementation, monitoring and review of the agenda, by making the data and information open and accessible to the people, will be even more significant,” he said.
The ARISE Agenda, he insisted, has significant potential to transform Akwa Ibom State only if it was fully anchored on the principles of openness, transparency, participation, and accountability.
Mr. Bolton-Akpan decried the existence of a sharp decline in fiscal openness and transparency in the state’s budget implementation, as detailed reports on the performance of the budget are now reduced to three-page summaries without capital expenditure details.
He said this has made it difficult for the people and civil societies to track projects implementation to ensure the expenditures on them aligned with the ARISE priority programmes.
“International investors and development partners need to see credible fiscal data on the implementation of the ARISE Agenda. Without it, the ARISE Agenda will struggle to either attract the financing it needs or the necessary buy-ins by the people,” he noted.
Welcoming the State Bureau of Statistics’ data-driven approach to the implementation of the ARISE Agenda, Bolton-Akpan however pointed out that not disclosing the metrics and methodology used for the evaluation falls short of both international quality standards and Nigeria’s National Monitoring and Evaluation Policy.
To ensure full public involvement in the evaluation process to enable third-party or “shadow” reporting that can highlight gaps and strengthen accountability, he urged the state government to immediately publish the ARISE Agenda on its website and institutionalize its reviews as an annual activity.
He reaffirmed the commitment of Policy Alert to work with the state government and other stakeholders to ensure the implementation of ARISE Agenda delivered on its promises to the people for inclusive and sustainable development.
