Post on 29-Jun-2019
transcript
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction ..................................................................... 1-3
2. Who We Are ..................................................................... 4-5
3. Our Theory of Change ....................................................... 6-7
4. Our Innovation .................................................................... 8
5. Our Area of Focus ........................................................... 9-10
6. Funding Our Programs ....................................................... 11
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LIST OF ACRONYMS
CSO Civil Society Organization
FBO Faith Based Organization
NGO Non-Governmental Organization SDGs Sustainable Development Goals M&E Monitoring and Evaluation
KTI Knit Together Initiative
FGM Female Genital Mutilation
HIV Human Immunodeficiency virus
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KTI STRATEGIC PLAN - 2019-2022
1.Introduction
Knit Together Initiative (KTI) was established/registered with the Cooperate Affairs Commission in 2017, and became operational in 2018. Our core mandate is to empower young people, to build resilience, determination in themselves and the society. In less than a year we became operational, the organization has grown into one of the leading national non-profit organization building strong network of individuals and communities in the Niger Delta region to promote, lead and/or support the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other internationally agreed conventions that promote the health, rights & well-being of all persons. This is KTI’s 1st strategic plan and covers the four-year period from 2019-2022.
The narrative of Niger Delta that KTI subscribes to is one of resilience. While we are not blind
to the challenges of the region, we strongly believe that its citizens, acting as part of a robust
civil society, can play a powerful role in transforming the region. This strategy reflects how
we, as KTI, aim to contribute to build a resilient society.
The strategy begins with our understanding of the Niger Delta today, the rapid changes, the
emerging challenges and opportunities and the development ecosystem within this context.
Based on the assessment of our environment, we present our vision, our unique mission in
contributing to that vision and equally important, and our theory of change, which is
centered on meaningful youth engagement as a powerful driver of sustainable development
in the Niger Delta. The rest of the strategy is dedicated to describing what we plan to do in
the next four years to fulfil this mission, namely the ambition for our programs and how we
will organize ourselves to deliver on this agenda. We conclude with a summary of how we
intend to fund our ambition with a focus on projected income and expenditure from2019-
2022.
As with any strong strategy, the value is derived not simply from the words on paper but
from the consultation and reflection process that led to development of the document. The
preparation of this strategy involved rich discussions, a survey and feedback from KTI’s staff,
Board members, implementing and funding partners. This strategy is a reflection of
collective thinking.
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2. Niger Delta: An Evolving Society
The Niger Delta region of Nigeria, located in the south-south zone of the country, is the region that produces oil – the lifeline of the Nigerian economy. Since 1956, when oil was discovered in commercial quantity in Oloibiri in present day Bayelsa state, Hydrocarbon resources have been the engines for Nigeria’s economy, as oil provides 95% of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings and 80% of the government’s budgetary revenues (Davis 2010:1–2). According to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, Nigeria’s oil production accounts for 8% of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) total daily production and 3% of the world’s volume. However, the discovery of oil, which was expected to improve the lot of the communities where it is sourced, has become a curse rather than a blessing because of oil exploration activities and its attendant hazards, such as air and water pollution. This has led to the indigenous people demanding compensation as well as control of the oil wealth. This demand has led to a confrontation between activists and Multinational Oil Companies operating in the region as well as the Federal Government. The struggle which started as a peaceful protest metamorphosed into armed conflict after the killing of a renowned activist and playwright in the region, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni men. The new wave of protests after this has included the abduction of foreign oil workers, bombing of oil installations and destruction of lives and property including other foreign expatriates in the development space.
The Niger Delta region of Nigeria comprises the nine states Abia, Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross
River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers. About 31 million people live in the region which is
renowned as one of the World’s ten most important wetland and coastal marine ecosystems.
The Niger Delta is rich with a diverse mosaic of ecological zones, five of which are the Mangrove
Forest and Coastal Vegetation Zone, the Fresh Water Swamp Forest Zone, the Lowland Rain
Forest Zone, the Derived Savannah Zone and the Montane Zone.
The Niger Delta is also the location of massive oil deposits, which have been extracted for decades
by the government of Nigeria and by Multinational Oil Companies (MNOCs) (Ajodo-Adebanjoko
and Ojua 2013:2). Since 1970, the country has earned at least $300 billion from energy
development and in 2005 it made $450 billion. With about 40 million barrels of proven oil
reserves, it currently produces 2.4 million barrels of oil per day, which constitutes about 90% of
the government’s revenue and 95% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings (Ajodo 2002:6).
Nigeria is West Africa’s biggest producer of petroleum and the sixth largest supplier of oil in the
world, thanks to oil from the Niger Delta. Oil wealth has been instrumental to Nigeria’s
emergence as a leading player in world and regional politics. Specifically, Nigeria has been playing
a leading and dynamic role in African politics as a member of several regional organisations, such
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as the Africa Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and an
active role in global politics under the United Nations.
With the oil boom in the early 1970s, Nigeria began to assert her influence around the globe and
till date whatever influence Nigeria has, is credited to the discovery and exploration of oil.
However, the region which bears this economically important oil has been enmeshed in conflicts
for more than four decades – owing to the negative impact of oil exploration. The region is a tale
of poverty, squalor and gross underdevelopment in the midst of plenty which has affected the
people’s means of livelihood, Health and development.
Amnesty represented an opportunity to stabilise the region for constructive conflict resolution
negotiations. It was not the first time that an amnesty initiative had been put forward to resolve
the violence in the region, but this time it was an offer backed with solid proposals for the
necessary disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of the region’s militants (Davis 2010).
Despite this, however, the programme was not able to address regional violence, largely due to
the lack of attention to the peculiar type of conflict in the region. Thus, in order to fully appreciate
the task of conflict resolution there, it is important to look at past attempts at conflict resolution
in order to consider ideas for the future.
Inspired by these challenges and opportunities in the region, and in Nigeria – including in health
and well-being, youth entrepreneurship and promotion of quality education, KTI is building a
strong network of individuals and communities in the region to promote, lead and/or support
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the implementation of the sustainable development goals and other internationally agreed
conventions that promote the health, rights & well-being of all persons.
3. Who we are Vision To build a society where individuals mutually support each other and live life together as friends and confidants by extending knowledge, empowerment, justice and dignity in the lives of individuals Mission
To extend knowledge, empowerment, justice and dignity in the lives of individuals, helping them build resilience, and determination in themselves and the society
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Values
• Leadership: We practice what we
preach. We model our work to
empower young people by setting
exemplary leadership and standards of
organizational management and
governance.
• Diversity: We celebrate our diversity,
thus we set the pace for efficient,
effective, influential and sustainable
community that reflects the region’s
rich socio-cultural diversity.
• Excellence: In all our activities and
relations with partners, and donors we
strive for excellence as the minimum
standard in the quality of our work.
• Ethics: We abide by the highest ethical
standards of transparency,
accountability, human rights and
social justice.
• Collaboration: Our multisectoral
partnership approach is one of our key
assets.
We build Partnerships, networks and
strategic mutual relationships with
relevant development stakeholders.
• People-Centered: We value the
people we work with; we recognize
that our staff, interns, volunteers,
resource persons, beneficiaries and
partners are the backbone of our
operations.
• Innovation: We constantly explore
creative ways to enrich our work. We
are agile and responsive to the
changing needs of the people we
serve.
• Non-discrimination: We believe in and
respect the principles of equity,
inclusion and non-discrimination. We
are committed to working with all
persons, without discrimination, to
promote open, democratic and
developed societies in West Africa.
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Organizational strategic Objectives a. Promote access to healthcare service delivery including sexual reproductive health and supplies with
focus on adolescents and youth. b. Implement, advocate for and support initiatives aimed at ensuring inclusive, equitable quality
education for all and life-long learning c. Bring development strategies to the field of youth entrepreneurship, through innovative approaches
to building lifelong skills and strong economy d. Advocate for the enactment and effective implementation of policies that promote better
health and well-being for all. e. Provide platforms for community building, partnership, and multisectoral collaboration
among organizations in promoting development in the region.
Our Strengths and Limitations
We are aware that our strength lies in the quality of programs/projects we implement in the
society. Feedback from the government, project benefactors and development partners who
have worked with us indicates a high level of satisfaction and this has earned us a strong
reputation and brand even beyond the region. We are able to achieve this because of the
approach we use, our diverse team, innovative work culture and strong policies. To leverage
these strengths, during this strategic period, we will continue to improve the quality of our
programming, invest in our human resources and build our organization to be the reference
point for the people we serve and our donors.
We also acknowledge our limitations. We recognize, for example, that we have limited
human and financial resources to meet all the demands from our benefactors. We are under
enormous pressure to work with many young people and community groups on a wide range
of issues. We recognize we cannot do it all alone. We are thus trying to get better at
prioritizing and focusing on our core mandate: mutually supporting each other to live life as
friends and confidantes. We also strive to strengthen our collaboration with key partners to
effectively deliver services in response to demand from the society. Another limitation is that
we are yet to harness adequate capacity to deepen our engagement in all the nine (9) states
of the Niger Delta. We are thus, constrained in responding to the demands from the
remaining eight (8) states. We intend, therefore, during this strategic period, to seek
innovative ways to increase our capacity to strengthen our engagement in those states.
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4. Our Theory of Change
We appreciate that it is not young people alone that will contribute to this vision for the
region. Equally important will be accountable and responsive governments, strong
institutions both within and outside government, a conducive global environment and the
private sector. Our focus, however, as KTI, is building a strong network of individuals and
communities as drivers of change within the region and enables it to better engage with
governments, the private sector and other actors.
For KTI to play this role, it must be and do a number of things. It must be responsive to the
needs of its diverse constituencies and be accountable to these citizens on whose behalf it
speaks and acts. The different actors within the society, whether organized as NGOs or as
organic social movements, need to be able to work together and leverage each other’s
strengths to provide a strong collective force for change. KTI will also have to be resilient and
able to adapt to rapidly changing contexts and find innovative means to sustain their work.
This is about meaningful youth engagement that is influential in setting the agenda and
holding governments and non-state actors accountable for transforming the region and
prioritizing their needs.
KTI’s purpose is to contribute to the growth and continued existence of this type of youth
engagement and society in the region.
For civil society in West Africa to grow into this role, we believe two things must be in place.
The first is engaged youths who are left behind, recognize the value of organizing to effect
change and therefore participate and take ownership of the various spaces of in
development interventions. Without meaningful youth engagement, the society’s legitimacy
and credibility will continue to be challenged by problems associated to young people. The
second is an enabling environment for promotion, and support the implementation of the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other internationally agreed conventions that
promote the health, rights & well-being of all persons.
Our theory of change is that young people are valuable community leaders in their own rights,
capable of leading sustainable change and influencing investments for their health, development
and well-being delivers ripples effects in building a resilient society.
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Our entry point, as KTI in this transformational process is at two levels. On one level, we will
work with a range of partners such as the Government, Donors, the Private Sectors, the
United
Nations Systems, Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), Academia, Social Movements,
Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs), Professional/Voluntary Association, and Media, to
strengthen their ability to play a powerful role as agents of change. Social Accountability and
Human Rights will be critical in this respect. On another level, we will work with young
people, community members to create an enabling environment everyone to thrive and
grow.
In our work with young people, we will use three key strategies:
• We will capacitate;
• We will connect and convene; and
• We will curate knowledge and facilitate learning.
In our work with governments, regional bodies, the private sector and donors, we will
influence and advocate.
One of KTI’s capacity building session for young people
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Our Innovation
As it’s expected of organizations to evolve and change, we too have to shift and adapt,
especially with the 21st century trend . We have also listened carefully to voice of young
people, from our partners about which of our approaches are more effective than others.
Based on this, there are some things we will continue to do and there are some new things
we will start to do in this strategy.
❖ We will continue to leverage on technology to share information;
❖ We will continue to facilitate rather than assume we are in the heart/minds of the people we serve; and
❖ We will continue to implore multisectoral collaboration/partnerships in our work.
What is new is that we will go beyond the traditional partners to engage more with emerging
organic youth groups and social movements. We will strengthen their capacity while building
knowledge about what are the most effective approaches to work with them .We will also
connect these groups with more formal organizations/systems and encourage them to
leverage their comparative strengths. In addition to reaching these new actors within
society, this strategy will include a concerted effort to reach smaller, rural and less-
resourced groups through Training of Trainers(ToT). We will roll out high impact grass root
programs through innovative regional ecosystem. We will also begin to engage more with
the private sector as key partners in the sustainability of meaningful youth engagement. This
strategy, therefore, includes a much more diverse range of partners for KTI.
In this strategy, our policy influencing and advocacy agenda will be more people centered.
This will be reflected in more focused policy dialogues and follow-up actions after the
convening. We will build on where there is ownership, energy and momentum and where
we can be of added value. This ensures that we continue to facilitate rather than take over
youth engagement. In practice, this may mean that we may focus on a limited number of
states during the strategy rather than seeking to achieve impact in all nine (9) states of the
region. The aim ultimately will be to be more strategic and focused to achieve our desired
objectives.
Engagement with the most vulnerable groups is more effective when it is informed by an
understanding of this complex and vibrant sector. For this reason, this strategy includes our
intention to conduct research and analysis about these groups in the region and share this
regularly with a wide range of stakeholders. This is to ensure that efforts to strengthen and
transform the region are driven by evidence.
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5. Our Area of Focus
KTI has prioritized three (3) program areas to enable adolescents and young people become
a powerful driver of change in the region. In implementing all these strategies, we will give
particular attention to strengthening the agency of women and youth in recognition of the
central role they should play in the transformation of this region. We will also seize the
opportunities that technology is offering in opening up the space for civic engagement in the
region.
These are our areas:
We expect to see:
▪ Increased awareness creation in the region for reproductive, maternal & child health;
female genital mutilation; malaria; communicable diseases + HIV
▪ Increased partnership with the government, agencies, private sectors, media and
individuals activists to mobilize domestic resources to sustain development efforts.
▪ Strengthened capacity of young people to demonstrate exemplary leadership/roles
to foster change in their communities and for the achievement of the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs)
Health & Well-being 1:
We will seek to ensure health and well-being for all, at every stage of life. We will address specific
health concerns, including reproductive, maternal & child health; Menstrual Health Management
(MHM); Female Genital Mutilation (FGM); malaria; communicable diseases + HIV. We will
continue to take a long-term approach to advocacy and social/community mobilization and will
focus on shared learning rather than teaching.
Promotion of Quality Education 2:
We will create spaces and platforms for the promotion of quality education and life-long learning.
Achieving inclusive and equitable quality education for all, especially for vulnerable adolescents
(teen mums, and youth) in the region will require increase efforts. Our approach will focus on
facilitating back to school support; reintegration of teen mums to formal education, capacitating
teachers, advocacy and roll out of education trust fund.
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We expect to see: ▪ Increased partnership with the government, agencies, private sectors, media and
individuals activists to mobilize domestic resources to sustain development efforts.
▪ Improved school enrollment among adolescents and youth in the region
▪ Inclusive and engaged civic voices that shape public agenda, proffer policy
alternatives, monitor performance and demand accountability.
We expect to see: ▪ Increased interest in private enterprise, use and adoption of new and/or high-tech
approaches by young people to inform their crafts
▪ Increased financial and/or livelihood sources among young people
▪ Increased civic engagement on laws, policies and regulations that foster open
economic growth of people, promote decent jobs and advocate for gender equality
in economic empowerment.
Youth Entrepreneurship 3:
We will increase employment opportunities, especially for young people, reduce informal
employment and labor market inequality (particularly in terms of gender), promote safe and
secure working environments and improve access to financial services to ensure sustained and
inclusive growth for all. Importantly, we bring development strategies to the field of youth
entrepreneurship, through innovative approaches to building lifelong skills and strong economy.
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Funding ourPrograms
In the next four years, we will seek a sustainable and diverse revenue stream to fund
planned programs and organizational development. Given the ambition of our
program, we will aim to increase our revenues and ensure that they are flexible
enough to fund our priorities and grow our reserves. The sustainability of our income
will be contingent on us growing our internally generated revenue. During the
strategy period, therefore, significant attention will be given to developing these
alternative sources of income.
Our expenditure during the strategy period will reflect our program priorities and
where we hope to achieve the maximum impact. Out of our total expenditure on
program: 34% will go to capacity development. This is followed by 31% for knowledge
management, 25% for convening and connecting and 10% for policy influencing and
advocacy.
During the strategy period, we will ensure that our percentage of program to support
expenditure does not go beyond 85%as we find innovative ways to minimize our
operating costs. All our expenditure will be governed by a commitment to achieving
value for money where we maximize the impact of each naira/dollar spent. In
addition, we will continue to comply with established practices for effective financial
management at all times employing highest standards of transparency and
accountability.
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