On October
8, 2014 global leaders in International development and top Nigerian CEOs
gathered to discuss the Girl Dividend and take action for the Girl Child in
Nigeria, to implement new interventions that will help Nigeria achieve more
success in the Millennium Development Goals at the 2nd Annual CEO Forum on
Children's Rights held by the Foundation for CSR & Children’s Rights (“CSR Children”)
at the offices of KPMG in London.
Lord Michael Hastings of KPMG
delivered the Opening Address and was the host of the day; and Cecilia
Akintomide of the African Development Bank was the Keynote Speaker. Diane Abbot, Member of the UK Parliament was
also a special guest.
The event was described by Geoff Thompson
of the Kola Aluko Foundation as "a gathering of extraordinary Nigerians,
contributing to the historic debate, dialogue and discussion on the economic
and social opportunities empowering young girls through education can bring” and was attended by NGO and international development giants like Save
The Children; Plan UK and the Global Business Coalition.
Toyin Olakanpo, the President of the
Foundation
tasked the audience in her Welcome Address to consider how Nigeria’s impressive economic gains and GDP performance could be converted into
real gains in human development and children’s rights. She
highlighted the 10.5 million out of school children population that Nigeria had
- the largest in the world; and further identified that the key to Nigeria’s achievement of the Millennium Development Goals was tied to a serious
commitment to make a social investment in children’s rights; and that
a commitment to promote the education of girls was a vital piece of the
puzzle. New interventions were needed to
achieve sustainable results.
The first panel session entitled “the Statistics Don't Lie” was moderated by Chris Yates of the
Institute of Education, University of London; and had the participation of
leading authorities in international development like Professor Pauline Rose,
former Director of the UNESCO EFA Report and the Current Professor of
International Education at Cambridge University; Alkasim Abdulkabir of the
Presidential Victim Support Fund Committee (Nigeria); Dr Nazma Kabir of Plan UK
and Dr Victoria Showunmi of the IOE.
The panel concluded that CEOs can yield
their influence on the government in Nigeria to increase their GDP spend on
education which was currently 1.5% and inadequate to deal with the education
criss. The panel also encouraged a shift from the emphasized interventions of
the past on infrastructure and resources to interventions which sought to
change social norms and cultural attitudes.
Diane Abbot MP who was in attendance reminded the audience that: “100 years ago the British Working Class didn't believe in educating
girls. Now they do. Culture can change. It just takes time”
The second panel session was moderated by
Roger McCormick, former visiting Professor at London School of Economics and
current Managing Director of CCP Research Foundation CIC. The panel were asked
to look at strategy to secure the executive buy-in of senior executives to
adopt child rights policies and to see which other stockholders could be
engaged. Christianne Cavaliere of the Global Business Coalition joined this
panel and shared the work of GBC Education especially in regard to the Safe
School Initiative launched in Nigeria this year; and Lord Hastings also joined
this panel sharing his experience as a Trustee of Vodafone Group Foundation and
his existing senior executive position at KPMG.
The Nigeria CEOs and Executives in
attendance from Shoreline Group, Access Bank, UBA and Oando represented over
N500 billion naira in turnover for the year 2013. It was evident that the
private sector wanted to work with agencies to put Nigeria on the development
track for success in the MDGs but they expressed frustration in dealing with
the bureaucracy of government. Mr Kola Karim, GMD for Shoreline Group also
called for more impact assessment on CSR spend.
Cecilia Akintomide had the solution and
action plan for the CEOs as expressed in her Keynote Address in the Panel II
Session when she launched the 100 CEOs For Girls Initiative in
association with CSR Children, tasking CEOs to support girl child education
both financially and personally, “transforming Nigeria one girl at a time.” She agreed that
CEOs should focus on running their business and not running schools or getting
bugged down in bureaucratic red tape, and said that CEOs should engage the assistance
of organizations like CSR Children to implement their CSR policies.
A robust framework is being developed for
the 100 CEOs for Girl Initiative by CSR Children in consultation with
the African Development Bank and other stakeholders, with a Congress being held
in Nigeria, in June 2015, to cement all commitments.
Olakanpo said that the commitment being
sought from the CEOs will focus on the financial support of mentoring programs;
education and awareness programs on a national scale in line with the Girl
Education Project launched by CSR Children in June 2014; School Assistance
Funding; Research and Impact Assessment and the adoption of a Children’s Rights Policy Statement.
Akintomide had revealed that 43% of Nigeria’s 170 million population are children; and that 48% of those children (35 million) were
girls. She said that our commitment to invest in these children would be a
major determinant for the future of Nigeria. These children represented the
pipeline of our future and what we do to these children and these girls will
determine whether they became a dividend, tax or burden.
Other attendees included Mercy Corps; Save
The Children; Members of the London School of Economics Africa Summit;
Representative from TEDXEuston and the Kola Aluko Foundation.
Another guest commented that “It was inspiring to see highly successful black professionals coming
together in a spirit of mutual co-operation and benefit for the future of
Nigeria and Africa - our youth.”
(A full list of attendee can be found here)
Videos: YouTube Channel “CSR Children”
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The Foundation For CSR
& Children’s Rights
Registered in England
& Wales as a company limited by guarantee under the name “CSR Children”
Registered in Nigeria
as a non-governmental organization and charity
Contact: Toyin Olakanpo, President.
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