CSOs urged to self-regulate to expand civic space 

Civil Society organisations (CSOs) in the country have been urged to adopt a “self-regulatory mechanism” to sustain their organisations and expand the civic space.

Idem Udoekong, project manager, European Union (EU) Strengthening Bridge, Abuja, gave the advice in Enugu, at the just concluded two-day capacity building workshop on scaling the adoption of civil society organisation self-regulation in Nigeria.

The workshop organised by Ethics and Leadership Awareness Initiative (EGLAI), in partnership with the EU CSO Strengthening Bridge Project (EU CSO-Bridge) and implemented by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), targeted team leaders in the South-East, who are expected to stepdown what they learnt to their members.

Udoekong also appealed to members to carry their board members along, noting that board members are critical stakeholders and hold members accountable.

In his words, “We have been focusing on training of members, but not our board members. They are critical, because the board holds members accountable. So we need to find a way of carrying board members along on this, because if anything goes wrong, it is the board that is held responsible.

“It’s no longer time for us to impress donors, it is time for us to do things to impress ourselves.what I mean by that is that if we were doing things to impress funders, we now need to do things to survive and that means internal governance, as self-regulating.

We need to self-regulate to keep our entities afloat.”

Harry Udoh, team lead, Ethics and Good Leadership Awareness Initiative (EDLAI) said that CSOs in Nigeria have made progress, but noted that they are not moving as fast as they should and that is the reason the workshop targeted CSO champions-team leads in the States.

“We are looking at scaling up the civic space. We are building capacity of these individuals that we have identified as champions to drive the adoption of self regulation modalities within their States and I believe that before the year is over, we should have a lot of CSOs adopting self regulation modalities in their organisations and those precepts will guide their governance, financial management, operations to ensure effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability and by so doing draw the trust of critical stakeholders, like the donors, regulators, so that they don’t come up with restrictive laws anymore,” Udoh said.

The workshop formed part of a national effort to strengthen accountability, transparency, and regulatory compliance within the civil society sector, through the adoption of approved Hybrid CSO Self-Regulation (SR) modalities.

The training held on January 21–22, 2026, brought together South-East State CSO Champions and Subnational CSO Network Leads from the five States of the South-East region, who will serve as peer leaders driving self-regulation at State and thematic levels.

The training, highlighted public understanding of CSO self-regulation and its relevance to good governance, constructive, non-coercive approaches to strengthening accountability in the civic sector, promoted informed public discourse on civic space, compliance, and the role of CSOs in national development.