Written by Illiassou Boubacar, Project Manager of the Réseau des Organisations pour la Transparence et Analyse Budgétaire – (ROTAB)

As part of the implementation of the project: “Inform yourself of your rights to obtain proper compensation”, the Network of Organisations for Transparency and Budget Analysis (ROTAB-Publish What You Pay Niger) organised a capacity strengthening workshop for rights holders on citizen monitoring during the construction and operation of the Niger-Benin pipeline.

The workshop was held from 26 to 28 January 2023 at the Mairie de l’Arrondissement II in the Tahoua region. For three days, the participants, namely local actors from the Communes of Dankassari, Allela, Ourafane and Tasker, were trained on the real issues and challenges related to the construction and operation of the Niger-Benin pipeline. This means that the training concerned the rights holders of the four (4) communes of the four (4) target regions of the project regarding advocacy for citizen control of public action. In turn, they will be responsible for ensuring citizen monitoring of the management of the benefits of the pipeline in their respective territorial communities.

During this workshop in Tahoua, participants were trained in advocacy techniques and citizen control of public action, the right approach to monitoring fallout management from pipeline exploitation. In addition, the training placed great emphasis on educating stakeholders about their rights to compensation. Social inclusion is a must, and among the participants, there was a blind person, an albino, a leper, four older adults and two people with physical disabilities.

The content of the training focuses on transparency in the extractive industry. The training content is mainly focused on transparency in the extractive industry in a country where the opacity of exploiting natural resources is no longer in question. The opaque use of revenues from several decades of natural resource development is a case in point.