This policy brief is an effort by the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) to highlight the impact recorded by NEITI, identifying gaps and recommend necessary legislative interventions to strengthen NEITI process and propose Policy options around all these Nigerian legislators in order to strengthen the NEITI process.
Click Here to Download PDF of :policy brief on extractive industries with osiwa 2013
The Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, is a by-product of this reform process. It has been on the floor of the national Assembly since 2007 and like other aspects of the Reforms and existing policies, has continued to face challenges and attract divergent views from different quarters.
In the light of these, the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC found it pertinent to undertake a more in-depth interrogation of the contents and forms of existing policy thrusts, including the provisions of the PIB with a bid to suggesting possible reviews by all concerned stakeholders. Continue reading
Click here to download PDF – CISLAC Policy Brief – Reduce Under-five and Maternal Mortality
Globally up to three hundred and fifty eight thousand women die every year due to lack of access to timely intervention and lack of skilled medical personnel. Similarly, many children under five years of age, statistically up to eight million lose their lives to preventable health conditions such as pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, measles etc.
The quality of education in Nigeria has fallen so badly that the tendency for affluent families and members of the ruling class to send their wards to foreign educational institutions has gained ascendancy. In an attempt to improve this statistics, the government has approved increased participation of the private sector at every level of education including the tertiary level. These are however largely expensive and require such huge resources that is outside the reach of the average Nigerian household, thereby making it exclusive. Continue reading
Women are the most disadvantaged especially in the poorest countries. Opportunities for educational, social and economic advancement are usually markedly inferior to those of men and they often face barriers in gaining access to good education and health care for both economic and cultural reasons. This is manifest in less developed countries in lower level of education attainment for girls than boys and a lower life expectancy for women relative to men. There are indications of continuing bias against women, exhibited in the labour market where women face lower wages and fewer job opportunities, and continue to encounter discrimination in financial markets. Women also usually have fewer opportunities to participate in public decision making. Continue reading
The Environmental Rights Action, Social Action and Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre are among the leading Non Governmental Organisations in Nigeria that have been at the forefront of the campaign for the passage of a Nigerian peoples Petroleum Industry Bill since the introduction of the Bill by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s administration in 2008.
In the course of time, the Petroleum Industry Bill became the most celebrated, interesting, discussed and controversial bill in the annals of legislative history of Nigeria in recent times.
The above was not surprising as the bill meant different things to different sectors of the Nigerian society and foreign business associates depending on what their expectations were.
While the three organisations and their colleagues as grassroots organisations tried hard to create a balance in the final outcome of the bill in other to satisfy to a very large extent the desires and expectations of the Nigerian people, other interests were equally at work leading to various versions of the bill being placed in the public domain at different times. Continue reading
Nigeria is blessed with several natural and mineral resources that are widely distributed across the length and breadth of our land. However the dominance of oil as a major foreign exchange earner has completely eclipsed the over 34 other different minerals in 500 known mineral deposit sites Nacross the 36 states and federal capital. The result has been a vulnerable economy and an underdeveloped non-oil sector, specifically the solid mineral sector.
This sector was left in the hands of an informal group of untrained ands ill-equipped artisans who carried out their activities unregulated in several communities making negligible contributions to the overall GDP. The absence of inadequate legislation and poor law enforcement in the mining sector not only deprived the nation of the potential wealth available from this sector, but also put the health and lives of millions of people in jeopardy. This stems from the dire environmental and health consequences of the unsophisticated methods deployed by its practitioners. The death of about 162 children from lead poisoning traced to local processing of Gold in parts of Zamfara State, northern Nigeria i a Case in point.
Recent developments however revealed the inherent dangers of excessive dependence on oil. An embattled economy arising from the plunge in international oil prices and resulting in insufficient revenue to pursue socioeconomic and infrastructural development in the nation, the fluctuations in income generated as a result of the restiveness in the oil producing region of the nation and the committed search for biofuels and other renewable sources by erstwhile major oil consuming nations as possible alternative to petroleum. Continue reading
Click here to download PDF: CISLAC Policy Brief – Combat HIV AIDS Tuberculosis and Malaria
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Goal 6 is combating HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The targets are to halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and the incidences of malaria and other diseases by 2015, as well as, achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it.
