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Thursday 28 September 2017

Informed and motivated citizens are powerful agents of sustainable change

Nigeria is a case study where natural resources create enormous opportunity and curse. Evidence on citizen engagement highlight the challenges posed by elite capture, violence and coercion.

Participation in a representative democracy should not be confined to voting in elections, joining interest groups, and getting involved in local civic or political affairs.

"Informed citizens are better equipped to take advantage of opportunities, access services, excercise their rights, negotiate effectively and hold state and non-state actors accountable"-Narayan(2002).

Question the norm. Citizen engagement opens the door to empowering people to demand greater accountability and better services from the people they elected to represent them.

2 comments:

  1. Very true. Democracy and development needs informed citizens to guarantee participation and human flourishing. Kudos.

    ReplyDelete

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