The Ford Foundation, West Africa, has called for the redefinition of the philanthropy landscape to drive sustainable home-grown development in the sub-region.
Ford Foundation’s West Africa Regional Director, Dr. ChiChi Aniagolu, in a statement on Sunday in Lagos, said there was the need to redefine local philanthropy and promote local funding of credible civil societies to help the needy in various communities.
Aniagolu called on High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) in Nigeria and in the West African sub-region, to support local Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the face of dwindling financial funding from foreign governments and international partners.
According to her, the Ford Foundation hosted its maiden quarterly dialogue on philanthropy in Nigeria on Oct. 27, which was organised by PricewaterhouseCoopers Ltd. (PwC).
The director said that the event focused on creating lasting impacts through sustainable philanthropy in discussion with local philanthropists.
She said that the purpose of these quarterly dialogues would be convening local philanthropists and high-net-worth individuals across Nigeria and in other West African states to participate in dialogues that would redefine local philanthropy and promote local funding to better lives.
Aniagolu said: “As a result of recent significant declines in global funding, the very existence of CSOs, who provide support and services for local communities in education, human rights, HIV awareness, among others, is threatened.
“The election of conservative governments in the West, amidst their unique national challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with various humanitarian war conflicts around the world, have drastically reduced donor funding to Nigeria and other West African countries.
“Yet, the needs for the interventions and services these CSOs address continue to rise as many Nigerians depend on them for support in their everyday lives.”
She said that research and data showed that Nigeria was amongst the ‘Big 5’ private wealth markets in Africa, with over 10,000 high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) with private wealth of one million dollars or more.
Aniagolu, however, said that efforts of their philanthropic works had been uncoordinated and not channelled through recognisable CSOs.
She said that this had therefore led to short-term reliefs rather than sustainable long-term change.
“The rising class of Nigerian philanthropists could redefine the philanthropy landscape to drive homegrown development by supporting CSOs at the forefront of leading change efforts.
“The time is now. If CSOs do not identify other funding sources, the sector may significantly dwindle in the next 10 years or so.
“CSOs understand the communities they work in and have the experience and expertise to deliver development excellence. That has been our experience at the Ford Foundation.
“If local philanthropists don’t help to fill the gaps being left behind by development partners and even expand on them, our development challenges may get significantly worse in the coming years,” Aniagolu said.
She said participants in the dialogue among other issues discussed how local philanthropy could make more impact in society, challenges in getting funding, and how to achieve sustainability.
She said that the participants identified key challenges working against sustainable philanthropic efforts such as inflation, stifling government policies and bureaucracies and lack of needs assessment.
She added that the key challenges also included loss of monetary value in foundation endorsements, and lack of collaboration and synergy as well as duplication of efforts.
Aniagolu said that the stakeholders however agreed that getting founders and endowments to invest more, getting government buy-in and participation, public-private sector involvement, and working together would ensure the sustainability of local CSOs.
According to her, participants affirmed the need for partnerships and collaboration, innovative interventions, tax exemptions and incentives by the government to private companies to encourage and incentivise private philanthropy.
Aniagolu added that the participants advocated the removal of tax exemptions from the discretion of executive ministers as well as build local capacity and community engagement to ensure the sustainability of the interventions.
Also speaking, President of the MacArthur Foundation, John Palfrey, added that MacArthur was committed to ensuring that its contributions impacted society positively.
“At the MacArthur Foundation, scale impact doesn’t have to do with the organisation going the whole hog all by itself.
“We leverage partners and collaborations, then create platforms such as ‘Levers of Change’ to build scale and impact. We are committed to delivering impact in a systematic way,” Palfrey said.
