Akassa Development
Foundation
For the last 8 years, the Akassa Kingdom has been realising
its own development goals. With the assistance of Statoil Nigeria
and Pro-Natura (Nigeria), the Akassa Kingdom has become a model
of participatory development, peace and stability in a volatile
region.
With institutional structures established by the Akassa community
and facilitated by Pro-Natura (Nigeria), the people of Akassa
Kingdom are now able to effectively mage and realise their own
development goals.
Developing local capacity to solve and manage development problems
is the overall goal of the ADF and its nine associated institutions.
Constraining community development
in a majority of rural communities in the Niger Delta is the
lack of individuals, associations and institutions that are
accountable, capable, committed, democratic, equitable and
responsible enough to plan, implement and own development programmes
in a sustainable way. The ADF has addressed these problems
head on, facilitated
by Pro-Natura Nigeria, the people of Akassa Kingdom are now
able to effectively mage and realise their own development
goals.
Akassa Development Foundation is essentially another way to describe
the Akassa people. It features:
- An overseeing General Assembly with
equal representation from all 19 Akassa communities.
- A Board of Trustees and Steering
Committee; elected from the General Assembly. These two
committees monitor the day to day work of the ADF.
- A Secretariat and nine ADF institutions,
which embrace the whole Kingdom.
These videos look at how the programme seeks to address the
following local concerns:
 Poverty
(3.6mb)
Education
(4.6mb)
Health
(3.6mb)
Declining
Natural Resources (4.3mb)
Infrastructure
The ADF also disburses funding to each of the 19
communities that make up the Akassa Kingdom for community micro-projects.
In each of these 19 communities, the ADF and Akassa Clan Development
Council conducts participatory appraisal to identify priority
micro-projects. The average cost of each project in 2004 was N
250,000. In addition, communities provide up to 25% local contribution
through the provision of materials, labour and when necessary,
land. Each community appoints a 5-7 member Project Implementation
Committee, which oversees the project from the planning phase
through to completion. All Project Implementation Committees are
provided with support and technical assistance from ADF programme
staff.
ADF also makes provision for larger micro-projects
and the entire clan decides the priority and location of these
projects, which generally cost over N 1,000,000. The decision
is taken at an annual Akassa National Development Planning meeting,
with representatives from the 19 communities. Proposed ‘clan’
projects are prioritised during this meeting. Chosen community
and clan projects then form the basis of the Akassa National Development
Plan.
Background information on the Akassa Project is
available
Click
to read more...
Click
on the villages below to see a brief description of their projects.
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Akassa
'living university':
The Akassa Model
has become so successful that it is now a 'living university':
the community are proud to be a showcase for "bottom-up"
community driven development and take the responsibility
of promoting their model to other communities in Nigeria
very seriously.
Click
here for further details...
Roll over to view completed bridge.
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Akassa Institutions:
Akassa National Council of Chiefs
Akassa Clan Women
Association
Akassa Clan Youth Association
Akassa Clan Development Council
Akassa National Education Consultative
Committee
Akassa
National Health Consultative Committee
Akassa National Savings Association
Akassa Natural Resources Unit
Akassa National Skills
Training and Resource Centre Committee
Click
to see how communities participate in ADF Institutions |
Pacific Leatherback Sea
turtle threatened with extinction
The ADF has added its voice to an international request
for urgent action to save the Pacific Leatherback Sea
turtle. It is urging the UN to ban long-line and gill
net fishing in the Pacific ocean. Unregulated trawling
threatens sea turtles and other marine wildlife and seriously
threatens the livelihoods of many fisherman in coastal
communities.
Read
the full letter...
The
International call... |
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