Nigeria—Technical Assistance to Strengthen Public Financial Management, Statistics, Monitoring, and Evaluation Systems

In Yobe state, Nigeria, high levels of poverty and insufficient access to social services, combined with the effect of Boko Haram crisis on social infrastructure and the livelihoods of citizens, call for a broaden fiscal space and improved delivery of basic services.

The European Union’s (EU) Technical Assistance to Strengthen Public Financial Management (PFM), Statistics, and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems of the state and local governments in Yobe State programme assists the state to build upon the significant progress made so far in fiscal transparency and discipline, by finding ways to broaden the fiscal space in a sustainable manner, while ensuring improved delivery of citizen demanded public goods and services.

The project falls under the EU’s support for early recovery from conflict and resilience building in Yobe State. DAI’s technical assistance team works with key local government officials, civil servants and the civil society to support PFM reform, improve statistics, monitoring, accountability, and reporting, including legislative scrutiny, third-party monitoring, and budget tracking by citizens. The team works to strengthen the state’s aggregate fiscal discipline and ensure more efficient allocation and use of resources.

Sample Activities

• Identify areas where transformative and sustainable reforms are possible and require further support based on experiences to date and needs of the government.
• Identify areas for reform or system strengthening based on engagement with civil society groups.
• Identify entry points for engagement at state and local level and capacity building needs to strengthen the capacity of state institutions and critical nonstate actors in the field of PFM, M&E, and reporting.
• Design and implement reform support programmes and building capacity to further enhance financial management and reporting.
• Establish and build on channels of dialogue with civil society organisations to feedback on progress achieved so far.