A cross-section of Sub-Sahara African Shapers 

I would easily describe the Global Shapers Annual Summit as an immeasurably life-changing moment. This event inspired me in profound ways.

Weeks after, I am still finding the right words to describe how immensely powerful and liberating it was to be amongst over 500 diverse young people from across the Globe.  Let me put it in perspective, under 30 leaders who were Asians, African Americans, Europeans, and Australian were adequately represented under one roof. 

I received an email from the World Economic Forum (WEF) inviting me to attend the Global Shapers Annual Summit in Geneva, Switzerland. After more than two years, WEF opened up the summit for physical participants at the Forum Headquarters. Of course, this was an opportunity for shapers around the world to have a chance to connect, learn and plan to make a difference in the year ahead. 

The summit served as a favourable time for us to develop an understanding of our communities and what they truly stand for. We were also expected to test new ideas, skills and tools to lead change in today’s unique context. Of course, my role at Connected Development as someone who leads and coordinates some campaigns across Nigeria has availed me with numerous opportunities to work directly with marginalized communities  while understanding their context and exploring possible solutions. 

As I sat through the opening plenary at the United Nations building listening to Klaus Schwab Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum speak about the dimensions of leadership and how best these principles can be applied, I swiftly took a glance at the people sitting next to me. It was at that moment I realised that indeed diversity opens up fresh, unexplored avenues of thought and avoids myopic views, which is critical in our world today. 

Diversity is beautiful. Diversity gives us strength. Diversity makes life interesting. Diversity propels us forward. Diversity inspires unity. I could feel the power in the atmosphere. 

Global Shapers bonding during climate-related conversations 

I was born and raised in Nigeria; arguably one of the most diverse countries in the world. Despite colonialism, today, we boast over 500 unique languages and rich cultural heritage. However, We struggle to accept one another. I would rather refer to my neighbour by their tribe or religion. Tribalism has eaten deep into the flesh of Nigerians. Forgetting that we are all Nigerians, and in our differences lies our strength. I could certainly feel the energy. 

I bonded with a number of people on the first day. We spent hours talking about the various challenges we faced in our countries. Particularly, the shaper from Pakistan mentioned how over one-third of his country was underwater. This was a result of increased precipitation and glaciers melting fueled by climate change. Pakistan contributes less than 1% of the global greenhouse gases that warm our planet but its geography makes it extremely vulnerable to climate change. He delved into the root causes of terrorism, which occurs due to a lack of law enforcement, poverty, and unemployment. I could instantly relate because Nigeria is faced with similar challenges and we are working tirelessly at Connected Development to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. We must keep playing a vital role while anticipating the necessary evolution.

Most of us spread across all the continents of the globe are constantly thinking of ways to make impacts. We remain bound together by the desire to facilitate change and that is the epitome of diversity and inclusion. Change-makers from across the world move together as a team, yet spread from pole to pole of the planet earth. 

As the days progressed, I shared the work done by my hub while exploring areas of collaboration and partnerships. The most recent was the Climate reality project incubator which the hub won $3,000 to carry out a Gender-inclusive Plastic Recycling Action within two schools in Abuja, Nigeria. The summit had various breakout sessions under the community’s main impact areas. Areas like Protecting the planet, Creating inclusive communities, Strengthening civic engagement, reskilling for the future, Delivering basic needs and Improving health and well-being.

While we networked, learned, relearned and unlearned, we had tons of fun. We never hesitated to dance or sang during breakout sessions. We spent the night looking for fun activities and most importantly, afro-pop concerts on the heavenly streets of Geneva.

Lf- Natalie Pierce head of Global Shapers Community Rh- Hyeladzira James Mshelia Abuja Global Shaper 

This life-changing experience has deepened my understanding of the importance of diversity. Indeed, a multicultural exchange of ideas reinforces richer ideas, better impact and comprehensive solutions to perhaps, the global challenges we face in our world today.

I am thankful to World Economic Forum for this opportunity that I now hold so dearly to my heart. 

Connected Development (CODE)’s Programs Associate, Hyeladzira Mshelia, has been selected as a visiting social activist for the 2023 Twink Frey Fellowship from hundreds of candidates from across the globe.

Hyeladzira will work on a campaign in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, to establish a cohesive framework and digital platform to organize and empower 500 Gender Advocates (GA) across Africa to consolidate, collaborate, educate, learn, and participate in local issues impacting them.

The Twink Frey Visiting Social Activist (TFVSA) Program empowers social justice activists each year, whose work impacts women and acknowledges gender equality problems. One of the program’s objectives is to increase the ability and effectiveness of social activists. This will be achieved by providing the TFVSA with the time, place, and resources to work on a project that would not be achievable under the activist’s normal working conditions.

At CODE, Hyeladzira leads campaigns that address issues affecting women and girls including gender-responsive budgeting, girl-child education campaigns, and campaigns to eliminate all forms of violence targeted toward women and girls. She manages Project Sabi and the Gender Advocate Movement in Africa (GAMA). Her activism has focused on Women’s Rights with the goal of achieving the United Nations Sustainable Goal 5: gender equality and empowering all women and girls.

Connected Development (CODE), led by Hamzat Lawal, a global citizen and activist, has been promoting and advocating for open government, improving the government’s implementation of community projects, exposing and combating corruption, and combating extreme poverty in marginalized communities for more than a decade.

The leading civil society organization also invests in its young and vibrant workforce. Through Lawal’s leadership, CODE staff are exposed to an enabling environment that drives them to take on leadership and service opportunities on a global stage. Just recently, Out of 9,000 applicants, Pearl Utuk who works as a Programme Officer with CODE emerged as one of the 56 carefully selected winners of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for the 2022 cohort.

The Petroleum Industry Act 2021 was passed to remedy the failure of the Petroleum Act, it commercialized the NNPC and established new regulatory agencies. It also aimed to solve the age-old problem of oil-bearing communities being devastated by the activities of oil companies through the establishment of the Host Communities Development Trust (HCDT). The host community development provisions in the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 (PIA) is a well-known topic amongst stakeholders in the Nigerian oil and gas industry. The reason for this is not far fetched as before the PIA, there were no laws imposing host community development obligations on oil and gas companies but chapter 3 of the PIA in S.235 mandates the incorporation of the HCDT which will be a corporate body able to sue and be sued aimed at fostering sustainable prosperity in host communities and encouraging peaceful coexistence between licensees and host communities. It goes on to mandate the contribution of three percent of the total annual expenditure of the ‘settlor’ to the trust. The HCDT is to be established, specifically, to address the developmental needs of the oil-bearing and impacted communities in the region, and while it is commendable, it creates certain challenges. Below are some of the gains and perceived challenges that can arise from the act.

The UNGP provides a framework for companies to report on their human rights record while chapter 3 of the PIA mandates it. The PIA by its provisions is complementary to the principles of the UNGP and although the development and implementation of the National Action Plan have been slow, the passage of the PIA and its eventual implementation will go a long way in influencing human rights records within the industry. 

By Msen Nabo (Digital Media Associate, CODE)

One important lesson being in the civil society space has taught me is: “It doesn’t matter how backward you think a people’s culture and beliefs are, you must approach and engage with respect and carefully plan your actions and execute them in ways that doesn’t expose them to more harm”! The goal is to win them over, not prove a point.

You can’t show up scantily dressed to a meeting with stakeholders who have deep rooted culture of being covered up and hope to convince them on why the girl-child belongs in the classroom. These are people from communities whose larger population believes western education does nothing but makes the girl-child go wild, in their words “lalata, karuwance, da rashin kunya” hausa words loosely translated to mean “getting spoilt, turning to harlots and throwing all moral caution to the wind” if anything, showing up dressed in any way other than what conforms to their culture and beliefs only strengthen their resolve to never let their wards see the four walls of a classroom cause in their mind, “I wouldn’t want my daughter dressed like that”

I had the rare privilege of representing our CEO and Malala Fund Champion, Hamzat Lawal at a two-day capacity building workshop for School Monitoring Teams (SMTs) in Adamawa State Northern Nigeria, for the continuation of the ongoing engagement for Girl-child education in the state. A campaign by Connected development with support from Malala Fund.

During the workshop which had stakeholders comprising of religious leaders, teachers, principals, community leaders, students and other key stakeholders, the team assured them of CODE’s commitment to bridge the communication gap between them and the government in providing a safe, conducive learning environment, with WASH facilities, lack of which has been one of many factors why parents don’t enroll their wards. 

To further sensitize them, I facilitated a session on the role of social media in amplifying conversations around community needs and guided them on how to sign up, use these platforms, add hashtags and tag the appropriate handles to their posts to achieve desired results.

A key advantage for me on this trip was understanding and speaking hausa fluently which is the Lingua Franca in the North. It was handy in facilitating the workshop both in English and Hausa to further drive the message home and ensure no one was left behind due to language barrier. This, in addition to our appearance, helped shape the conversation and strengthen the feeling of “togetherness” which made them see us as the solution and not the threat.

The end result of the team approaching them with the respect they deserve was an engaging two days where participants were actively involved and made contributions towards addressing issues like insecurity that has been ravaging the region, dilapidated school buildings, understaffing of schools due to lack of trained teachers, and cost of Education.  To address these issues, CODE is advocating for 12years free compulsory education in the state and getting the government to commit to recruiting more qualified hands and address insecurity to ensure a safe learning environment.

As we go about seeking to intervene and address injustice in various sectors, I hope we take a step back to look at the broader context. I hope we make a deliberate and conscious effort to put ourselves aside for a moment and “DO NO HARM” while trying to help. The cause will always be bigger than us!

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For over nine years, Connected Development [CODE], through its FollowThe Money Iniave has tracked and monitored public spending in rural communities across Nigeria and other African countries. As of December 2020, CODE had reached over 3,300,000 people across 231 communities, in 37 Nigerian  States and the FCT Abuja. By fostering social accountability, the organization has advocated for open government, improved service delivery in the execution of development projects, exposed and mitigated corruption, and tackled extreme poverty in rural communities. 

In November 2020, CODE secured a grant from The MacArthur Foundation, for the project:, “Deepening  Cizens’ Interest in Government Spendings and Addressing Accompanying Corrupt Practices  (DeSPAAC) in Kaduna State.” 

The three-year project involves mobilizing community governance structures across the aforementioned communities through the CommunityMonitoring Teams (CMTs) vehicle and empowering them to provide effective public oversight on government spending in their communities, for effective service delivery on constituency projects in the educaon, health, and WASH sectors.  

Year one of the project focused on tracking 23 constituencies (zonal intervention) projects from the list of 2020 and 2021 ZIPs in 30 communities across the three (3) senatorial zones of Kaduna State worth  N1.167 billion. In all, 12 projects were tracked from the 2020 ZIP Budget document and 11 projects were  tracked from the 2020 ZIPBudget document.

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By Ruth Okafor

As a good governance and gender advocate, I wonder why a state as large as Kano with a huge population lacks a single female representation in her state assembly. An assembly that carves policies for the betterment of the people and represents various constituencies. It strikes me that a state with a population of over 13 million persons with about 40% of the population being women has no woman present to decide on key challenges facing them as a society. 

It goes to show that for years specific demography may have been relegated to the background, or not considered relevant to hold such positions. It is in line with this that the Ministry of Justice under the leadership of Bar. Lawan Abdullahi Musa is currently pushing for the passage of the harmonized VAPP and Child Protection Bill. These bills provide a legal framework that protects women and children in the society. The Child Protection Bill has been signed by the Executive arm since February 2021 but is yet to be assented by the Legislative arm of the government. 

The Stories surrounding the delay in the passage of these bills have been linked to culture and religion, despite the fact that some Islamic clerics were among those who reviewed and vetted the bills.  It was to this end that some CSOs, in collaboration with the FIDA Kano state chapter, organized a peaceful demonstration calling for the passage of the Child Protection Bill following the death of Hafsat by her schoolteacher, but these efforts were futile.

Connected Development has worked with various stakeholders since 2021 through gender advocates, trained to advocate for the passage of both bills as part of the Canadian High Commission-funded Galvanizing Mass Action Against Gender-Based Violence project in Kano State. Since our first meeting with members of the executive branch and a few legislators, we’ve made significant progress. 

Hence, my detour on why there is a delay in assenting to these bills as it stands to benefit the lovely people of Kano state. For a society to progress,  members of the society must be duly represented on the decision table, this will enable everyone to get perspective and clarity on every matter before a vote is taken. As much as women are not represented on the legislative council of Kano state, we hope that the decisions taken on these bills and others will be holistic, considering every member of society.

According to Vanguard, no fewer than 62 female candidates sought various elective positions in Kano state during the 2019 general elections. This means that women of Kano state are active in politics but what is the hindrance? According to a paper titled “Challenges and Prospects of Women Political Participation in Nigeria” Women’s participation in the electoral process in Nigeria has been constrained by multiple factors including culture, religion, psychology, and of late, social lynching. 

The paper also restated the claim that Islam does not entirely restrict women from aspiring for public roles. Women can seek to serve society in any role they desire except the leadership of prayer and command of the military. If this is so, then women cannot aspire to or contest the office of the President of the Federal Republic as that office comes with the responsibility of the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces, thus the Muslim woman cannot run for it. However, women can still contest for other positions that do not require military leadership, such as legislative and even state governorships. despite this, women have anyway become leaders in certain Muslim countries: PMs Benezir Bhutto (Pakistan), Sheikha Hasina (Bangladesh), Tansu Ciller (Turkey), and President Atifete Jahjaga (Kosovo).

For societies to embrace change and the needs of all its members, particularly marginalized communities, we must be able to make them part of the decision-making bodies in the governance structures. In conclusion, we must embrace the education of the masses, especially the girl-child and women at large.