In the last six parts of this article, we concluded our discussion of the role of the media and moved on to the sources of Press Freedom and concluded it with an analysis of the Character of Nigerian Media. In today’s edition, being the final installment, we shall come to a logical conclusion of the entreating series and proffer some relevant recommendations to ameliorate some hitches therein and foster future development. Please, read on.
Conclusion
To conclude, Civil Society is simultaneously a goal to aim for, a means to achieve it, and a framework for engaging with each other about ends and means. When these three faces turn towards each other and integrate their different perspectives into a mutually supportive framework. The idea of civil society can explain a great deal about the course of politics and social change, and serve as a practical framework for organizing both resistance and alternative to social, economic and political problems.
Many of the difficulties of the Civil Society debate disappear when we lower our expectations of what each school of thought has to offer in isolation from the others, and abandon all attempts to enforce a single model, consensus or explanation. This may not defer the ideologies from using Civil Society as a cover for their own agendas, but it should make it easier to expose their claims and challenge the assumptions they often make.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Increase support to the great Civil Society federations made up of trade unions under the aegis of the NLC, TUC and other longstanding associations that have significant influence on critical sectors of the society and economy.
2. Identity and support activities in the area of advocacy that are issue-driven and limited to one or two goals only.
3. Work with national level cross-sector fora that already exist and are not donor-driven. Some formal civil society forums already exist to facilitate coordination and cooperation across different sectors of the Civil Society. The NLC has a Civil Society Forum designed to coordinate labour activities with other non-labour organizations. In addition, the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria has started a Civil Society Forum that includes many human rights and other pro-democracy groups. More recently, a business association, the Convention on Business Integrity, has commenced an innovative “Civil Society Club” as a vehicle for linking businesses and CSOs in coalitions to fight government corruption.
4. Provide capacity-building to CSOs with substantial experience in the areas of civic awareness and advocacy, and to those that have internal democratic practices; and where appropriate, encourage Civil Society groups to democratize their own decision-making processes and provide greater transparency and accountability to their communities. How?
5. Explore the possibility of continuing support to media activities that promote civic awareness for transparency and accountability and advocacy. This will have the effect of insulating media practitioners from the strangulating control and grip of their media organizations.
6. Provide advocacy skills to the CSOs support under the HIV/AIDS initiative. This might be done as a buy-in to the DG Civil Society portfolio to access this assistance.
(The End)
Thought for the week
Society cannot exist without law. Law is the bond of society: that which makes it, that which preserves it and keeps it together. It is, in fact, the essence of civil society.
(Joseph P. Bradley)