BY BENEDICT NWACHUKWU, ABUJA
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Ita Enang, has advised Civil Society Organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations to re-strategize on their policy engagement approach to successfully influence policies for desired change.
Enang gave the advice while delivering a keynote address at a meeting with CSOs on ‘Policy engagement and influencing: Insight and perspectives,’ organised by the Policy and Legal Advocacy Center with support from the Ford Foundation, in Abuja.
Enang said, “Policy engagement and influencing is another way of lobbying, which is to identify the issues and the challenges around the issues, identify the audience that you meet, is it Legislators or those who draft the Law? Then, you determine the mode of approaching it.
“Will it be by public hearing, organising dinner or cocktail so that experts can come and talk or media advocacy or bringing in members of the public to mount pressure on the Legislators? It would depend on what you do and the target that determines the method you will adopt.”
On the theme, ‘Understanding the political and policy making landscape: Effecting strategies for influencing government,’ he described lobbying as a means of making the other person see your point of view, buy into it, agree and flow with you the way you want it done. Lobbying, he said would not require giving money.
Senator Ibriahim Yahaya Oloriegbe, acting Chairman, Senate Committee on NGOs and Diaspora, was among the dignitaries at the event.
