CCC Candidacy 2025: 21st Century Community Empowerment for Youth and Women Initiative (CEYWI)

Organization: 21st Century Community Empowerment for Youth and Women Initiative (CEYWI)
Name of Organization’s Representative: Adekunle Lukman ADEFOLAHAN
Website: https://ceywi.org.ng/
Email: century4development@yahoo.com
Country: Nigeria
Which seat are you nominating for? Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Seat 2

Organization’s profile

21st Century Community Empowerment for Youth & Women Initiative is a humanitarian, not for profit, and non-governmental organization founded in 2012, with the mission to serve as a platform for good governance and societal development, through policy advocacy for inclusive participation and people-centered research towards sustainable peace and development.

CEYWI was incorporated as a corporate body with Corporate Affairs Commission on 7th November 2014 (CAC/IT/NO73348), National Planning Commission (12th August 2015), NPC/NGO/IC/S.638, Special Control Unit Against Money Laundering (24th November 2014) RN: SC 151401085, Federal Inland Revenue Services (11th February 2015) MTOABJ/NGO/73348/0000814.

CEYWI is a member of various networks and coalitions, including at National Level: Civil Society Scaling-up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN), Nigerian Network of NGOs, Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Tax Justice and Governance Platform (TJGP), Zero Corruption Coalition (ZCC), State of the Union Nigeria Campaign Platform (SOTU-NCAMP).

At the Regional Level: CEYWI belongs to the West Africa Civil Society Forum (WACSOF), while at the Continental Level: we belong to the African Caucus NGOs on Social Development and Globally we belong to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption Coalition (UNCAC), and United Nations NGO Committee on Social Development. CEYWI has UN Special ECOSOC Consultative Status.

Organization’s experience

CEYWI was part of the cluster member of Anti-Corruption anchored by ANEEJ with the title “Enhancing Anti-Corruption and Social Inclusive Reforms in Nigeria”. The Nigeria government has committed to addressing corruption and has taken steps to accomplish this, even though the scourge persists. CEYWI has been in the forefront with other CSOs to engage on the implementation of the recommendations of the two reviews of UNCAC in Nigeria.

CEYWI, an organization that serves as a platform for good governance and societal development, through policy advocacy for inclusive participation and people-oriented research towards sustainable peace and development signed a grant agreement with United Nations Trust Facility Supporting Cooperation on Arms (UNSCAR) to implement projects in 3 West Africa countries (Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal) with duration of 12 months. The title of the project is Evidence-Based Capacity Building for ECOWAS Member States on Military Expenditure Reporting.

The project on evidence based capacity building for ECOWAS, involves knowing  reasons countries do not report on military expenditure and has as its ultimate goal of transparency which enhances military expenditure to serve as Confidence and Security Building Measure (CSBM) among states and prevents military conflict. It also has a capacity building component which uses research findings to improve state’s ability to report on their military expenditure in order to ensure that countries are in a position on their military expenditure. CEYWI work closely with media and other key CSOs at the country level to monitor public procurement to reduce wasteful and reduction in the abandoned projects in the country.

CEYWI has a UN Special ECOSOC Consultative Status.

Top 3 priorities to achieve as a CCC Member

1. As a member of UNCAC, CEYWI will engage more CSOs at the country level to be part of the coalition for greater impact and engagement by increasing the current members from Nigeria to 20 and same will be done with other sub-Sharan Africa countries to have more members that will engage at various countries for impactful anti-corruption fight.

2. Recommendations of the reviews from the Sub-Sharan African countries will be distilled with UNCAC members CSOs and media advocacy will be set up as priority for further engagement and implementation with relevant members organisations

3. Networking with other regions for best practices in anti-corruption programming will be major priority as lessons to be shared with members organisations that will contribute to our resource’s mobilization efforts as a strategy for resources mobilization.

Candidate’s profile

Adekunle Lukman Adefolahan has almost two decades’ experience engaging anti-corruption issues. Some of his experiences include membership of research team that conducted Mapping and Scoping Survey of Anti-Corruption and Governance initiatives in 28 States in Nigeria and also represented the CSOs at the two-country visit of the team of reviewers to peer review Nigeria on the UNCAC implementation. Lukman has experiences in anti-corruption programming, monitoring, reporting and advocacy.

Currently Lukman is the Lead Coordinator at 21st Century Community Empowerment for Youth and Women Initiative. Lukman as a development worker, with high-level policy advisory to Good Governance themes with a focus on Anti-corruption, Public Financial Management, Law Enforcement Reform, Illicit Financial Flows and Public Service Delivery.

He had successfully implemented projects through financial acquisition of development projects from bilateral and multilateral development partners; Management of multicultural teams; Networking and high-level representation at diplomatic venues, conferences and top development events such as UN General Assembly; Conference of State Parties, Publishing and research within the scope of political economy and good governance. Lukman is a Certified Corruption Risk Assessor by UNDP/ICPC.

Contributions to the work of the Coalition

As a board member, if elected I will be coming with expertise on advocacy as well support in the resource mobilization efforts to support the work of the coalition. Apart from bringing my expertise in anti-corruption programming, I will leverage on the coalition convening power to institutionalize knowledge products by supporting research around the coalition thematic area of focus by supporting development of policy briefs and fact sheets for advocacy by member organisations.

My convening power with the regional blocs like ECOWAS and African Union will be utilized for the coalition to engage better on the key resolution that may agreed on at the CoSP and other UN engagement like HLPF, UNGAS, F4D etc. Our organisation mission and vision align with the role of the board if elected to serve as a platform for good governance and societal development, through policy advocacy for inclusive participation and people-centered research towards sustainable peace and development.

A global civil society network promoting the implementation and monitoring of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC)