Cynthia Rowe, the Development Director at the British High commission said that the Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL) programme has yielded impressive results in Nigeria.
Rowe said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja.
She said that the objective of the programme was to help government and citizens work together and use their resources to improve basic services like health and education.
“I am so proud of the overwhelming positive feedback received from our partners at both the Federal and sub- national levels at the close out event of PERL.
”The programme has provided assistance in three focus states like, Kano, Kaduna, and Jigawa, as well as Abuja,” she said.
She said that the programme had extended its expertise and technical support to governments in the southeast, southwest, and northeast regions.
According to her, notable successes of PERL include revenue generation, budget transparency; autonomy of state legislatures, open government partnership and project monitoring.
She said that technical support from PERL helped increase internally generated revenues by 80 per cent in one state between 2019 and 2023, translating to improved primary healthcare facilities and more health workers.
Rowe said that the programme had also aided budget transparency at the sub-national level.
she said that two of PERL’s focus states were now rated as the most transparent in Nigeria by the Nigerian Sub-national Budget Transparency Survey and the World Bank Fiscal Transparency Programme.
She added that in the area autonomy for state legislature, PERL facilitated constitutional reform that enabled state parliaments to scrutinise government actions and hold them accountable.
She further said that PERL helped to establish an open government partnership in Nigeria, increasing transparency in sub national government data, with 26 states committing to the partnership at the end of 2023.
She said that through project monitoring initiative the prpgramme supported the Federal Government’s Central Delivery and Coordination Unit.
According to her, the support enabled the unit to develop a system for measuring and managing ministerial performance to ensure that they were keeping government promises.
“Implementing PERL has not been without challenges, but there are also lessons learnt during these times
”Understanding Nigeria’s political context and incentives was crucial during the implementation, though reform can be difficult and contentious.
”However, collaborations and inclusivity are essential. Bringing people together to solve problems yields better results than pitting them against each other,” she said.
She said that the PERL multi stakeholders’ approach of bringing citizens and government together helped to close the gap and trust between them.
She said that addressing these challenges and building on its successes was the high point for PERL.
Rowe disclosed that the UK government would continue to support Nigeria’s development to improve the lives of its citizens.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that PERL, a public-sector accountability and governance programme, has been making strides in Nigeria since its inception in 2016.
Its primary objective is to foster collaboration between the government and citizens to tackle governance challenges and improve service delivery, particularly in health and education, and it ended on Sept. 24.
(NAN)
