Stakeholders pledge to sustain USAID project in Adamawa
Stakeholders have pledged to ensure the sustainability of the USAID Nigeria State Accountability, Transparency, and Effectiveness (State2State) activity being implemented in Adamawa State.
They made the pledge in separate interviews with journalists, at the end of a three-day workshop tagged “Adamawa State Year Five Consultative Work Plan,” held in Gombe.
Dr. Mary Paninga, the Executive Secretary of the Adamawa State Planning Commission, said the impact of the project on enhancing governance had made it imperative to sustain it.
According to Paninga, the USAID intervention had been instrumental in smoothing governance and enhancing better service delivery; hence, “it will not be good not to own the project after its expiration in 2025.
“With this workshop, there is assurance that every discussion made will be followed up, and the sustainability of each and every one of the platforms is guaranteed.
“We will ensure that we monitor and ensure that everyone of these comes to a logical conclusion and brings up the output that Adamawa State and its citizens would benefit from,” she said.
The executive secretary commended USAID State2State for all the reforms that had been introduced towards ensuring transparency, accountability, and effectiveness towards strengthening governance systems in the state.
On his part, Mr. Makallan Akila, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, Adamawa State, said the state’s budgeting processes had been greatly reformed and improved with the support of the USAID State2State project.
Akila said there were many reforms that State2State brought to Adamawa State in so many ministries, departments, and agencies that have to do with accountability, transparency, and effectiveness in governance.
He said plans were already in place to sustain such reforms as the state-to-state rollout in 2025.
“With the benefits of the state-to-state reforms, there is a willingness from stakeholders to sustain these reforms.
“State2State has built the capacity of staff in the budget and planning ministry, and today, our staff can prepare the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and others.
“We now, through state-to-state training, have the staff with the capacity to plan and budget very well based on available data.
“Before, budgeting was done in a skeletal manner without data and a template of proper budgeting; state-to-state intervention has changed that narrative; this is commendable, and we will sustain the reforms,” he said.
Mr. Sani Sabo, the Adamawa State chairman of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD), said there were fears among its members that State2State was rolling out soon.
Sabo, however, said they would sustain advocacies and continue to pursue the reforms so that his members would continue to reap the gains of the project and reforms.
