Improving CSOs Credibility, Legitimacy through Effective Self-Regulation

With the active support of the European Union-funded Agents for Citizen Driven Transformation (EU-ACT) programme, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) across the country have underscored the need to enhance their legitimacy and strengthen their confidence, accountability and credibility through effective self-regulation. Rebecca Ejifoma takes a deep dive into the fringe benefits of CSOs’ self-regulation

Over the years, the civil society space has arguably seen an influx of more non-for-profit groups, who take on various advocacy projects like monitoring state and the private sector, championing citizen’s rights and good governance, peace and security, health, women and child rights while also shaping national policy among a host of others.

Hence, CSOs in the country have met minds on how to strengthen their operations. They conclude that effective self-regulation is apt. According to these CSOs, self-regulation will accelerate their legitimacy, credibility and accountability, ultimately enabling a more conducive environment. Other side attractions of effective self-regulation include rebuilding their trust and elevating them from that frail position before the public, serving as an instrument for check-and-balances for their conduct, and providing better access to prospective local and foreign donors.

Effective Self-regulation As a Veritable Tool for Legitimacy

Although the benefits of self-regulation seem eminently enormous, stakeholders have expressed worries that a somewhat foggy knowledge of it could leave many thinking it is akin to a witch-hunt rather than a veritable instrument for regulating their operations.

For the Senior Attorney and Board of Trustee, Lagos State CSO Platform (LASCOP), Mr Ayo Adebusoye, everything about effective self-regulation of CSOs in the country is good thinking that will yield valuable products. “Self-regulation is very critical in ensuring that the sector, which is made up of hundreds of thousands of CSOs at the subnational and the community level by themselves, voluntarily decide to make themselves more accountable, transparent and responsive to the public, to their members, to their board and their operations,” he emphasised.

According to the BoT member, self-regulation will effortlessly promote a platform for credibility and funding. “One of the most important aspects of self-regulation is the code of conduct where you abide by various commitments voluntarily. Just like the harmonised code of conduct we facilitated nationwide,” he added. “We had a national webinar last week supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). We had over 114 attendance organisations from all the political zones. It’s very critical,” he spelled out.

Role of the government

Adebusoye, a leading development expert, insisted that the government can salvage the situation for CSOs. “At the recent national CSOs National Conference on Civil Society Operational Environment, it was reiterated that there is a resolution. The regulatory bodies should come together more and dialogue more.” The barrister submitted that there should be coordination among the regulatory bodies like the Corporate Affairs Commission and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) so there will be multiple reporting.

Misconception of Self-regulation

Echoing the thoughts of Adebusoye, the Managing Director and CEO of Ekap Achi Foundation, Mr Roy Ndoma-Egba described the role of CSOs as indispensable in governance and development. CSOs are to bring more value to the table in a democratic setting,” he pointed out. “For CSOs to achieve that, they need a framework to help them self-regulate their activities and operations in the country.”

According to research, some of CSOs’ regulatory frameworks are governance/management, cost thematic area of work, fundraising and use of resources, human resources, accounting and financial management, technology and communication, citizen participation, engagement in policy and governance processes

Meanwhile, contrary to speculations that self-regulation is about taking over the roles of regulatory agencies, the Ekap Achi CEO dismissed it as misleading. “What effective self-regulation means is that within the regulatory framework, can we ensure compliance? When it comes to taxes, information dissemination, advocacy, and issues where we need to support government monitoring programmes, projects or policies, and plans, what should civil society’s roles be? It is high time we took that decision; it’s imperative,” says Ndoma-Egba.

He also outlined the bureaucracy of dealing with all the regulatory issues. “The bureaucracy is enormous. If you have an in-house system that allows civil society to self-regulate, it removes all that bureaucracy and brings more effectiveness and efficiency into the system.”

How Self-regulation Creates Access to Foreign Funding

Undoubtedly, donors – whether foreign or local – give CSOs the financial push to promote a particular service or policy-making process and to advocate for government accountability and rights-based approaches that protect vulnerable populations.

In the words of Ndoma-Egba, accessing foreign funds is another hitch. “We have for a growing country such as Nigeria. We have a vast population. We have massive dynamics. We have different types of organisations. The definition of civil society hasn’t been appropriately contextualised, which is why this self-regulation framework will help us put that definition in context.

“If we do that, it will mean that civil societies will be more accountable and more transparent in their operations because somebody can hold them liable for failure to fulfill, maybe, a contractual obligation or partnership obligation. That framework is fundamental in ensuring that kind of accountability and transparency.”

EU-ACT Championing CSOs in Nigeria

Over the year, the Agents for Citizen-driven Transformation (ACT) Programme, funded by the EU, works with CSOs to enable them to be credible and effective drivers of change for sustainable development in Nigeria. ACT is on the quest to strengthen the system of CSOs, networks and coalitions to improve their internal, external and programmatic capabilities.

Even Ndoma-Egba acknowledged the efforts of the EU. “The EU, besides the EU-ACT, has supported governance and reforms in Nigeria. One of the things that the EU-ACT seeks to achieve is to grant civil society the impetus to demand accountability.”

While the EU is resolved on helping CSOs attain self-regulation, the stakeholder reminded CSOs that whoever must go to equity must do so with clean hands.” He cautioned, “First, we must be ready to demand accountability not only from the government but also from the public and private sectors, even communities, because we need to begin to demand accountability from all of ourselves.”

So EU-ACT, he is confident, is providing that fundamental enablement, technical assistance, funding, and mobilisation of civil society communities and stakeholders to engage in this. “I think they’re adding real value to this process. Self-regulation is the foundation of accountability, the pathway to transparency, and the only way to institute integrity within civil society,” he said.

A Call to CSOs in Nigeria

To relish the full benefits of effective self-regulation, the Ekap Achi CEO sees the need for uncompromised synergy among CSOs. “We must learn to walk together,” he implored. “We are in a dynamic society where many things influence our disposition. We need to speak as one, irrespective of our diversity or focus. We must learn to be collective and communal in our approaches. We must agree that we must contribute significantly to the growth of democracy in Nigeria,” he recommended.

On her part, the Chief Executive Officer of Food Basket Foundation International (FBFI), Dr. Funmi Akinyele, commended stakeholders for the timely push for CSOs’ self-regulation, describing it as the future. “Self-regulation is like maintaining your house; everybody wants to have a house that is well organised, a house that you can invite anybody to at any time because you have nothing to hide. Really and truly, self-regulation is the future because no matter how anybody tries to regulate people’s houses, the first responsibility to maintain your house is on you.”

Therefore, she corroborated the views of Adebusoye and Ndoma-Egba, who called on CSOs to ensure that “We keep our houses in order so that no matter what anybody tries to come and find, they will find everything in order. That’s where self-regulation comes out”.

On why the sudden clamouring for self-regulation, Akinyele clarified that the conversation on self-regulation started decades ago, even though it’s only gaining traction now. “This is because more people dedicated more coordinated efforts. There’s more of a push towards it now because of the past few years. Some research has been adopted, and so many regulations for CSOs.”

Ultimately, stakeholders are harping on the significance of self-regulation. The FBFI MD, who doubles as the Co-chair of the National Technical Committee (NTC) on Self-regulation and Chair of the Steering Committee on Civil Society Regulatory Environment, encouraged CSOs to carry their host communities along in their operations.

“One of the major things should be public trust. It’s essential to carry citizens along as CSOs. One of the ways to do that is communication – engage stakeholders at different levels, the community, local government, and state.”