The Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission ( FCSC), Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has urged support for development and policy institutes in the country.
Olaopa made the appeal when the President of the Chartered Institute of Development Studies and Administration of Nigeria ( CIDSA) , Dr Elijah O. Ogbuokiri , led a delegation of the institute to his office in Abuja on Wednesday.
According to him, such support has become necessary to break the trend of government depending on foreign policy bodies . He specifically decried a situation where in most cases, the most quoted statistics on development issues in Nigeria are from foreign institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund .
Olaopa described CIDSAN as a relevant multi-disciplinary body concerned with policy and administration.
According to Olaopa, the institute is relevant in light of his experience as a bureaucrat in 27 years in the federal civil service where he was involved in strategic policy making and leading public and education reforms.
He said that in the course of these engagements, he observed a huge lacuna in terms of the quality of support and problem solving for the federal bureaucracy by policy institutes.
He disclosed that it was to fill this vacuum that he set up the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy ( ISGPP) upon retirement before he left for the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies ( NIPSS).
He said that his experience at NIPSS confirmed what he observed earlier. He said that he observed that most of the institutions that contribute to policy making are faced with the same challenges in terms of capacity and funding.
Thus, for him, those in government who are involved in policy making owe the nation and government the responsibility of building national policy and development institutions through patronage. He said that these institutions need policy evangelists to deepen policy work to drive national projects.
According to him, this reliance on foreign policy bodies is seen in the adoption of best practices developed in socioeconomic contexts that are different from those of Nigeria.
But while acknowledging that there are some institutions making impact in terms of technical support in the private sector, he said that their theories of change are not largely applicable in the public sector.
He urged civil servants to invest in learning from policy institutes while they are in service. He said that while he was in service, he seized every opportunity available to learn from policy institutes locally and overseas.
Earlier, Dr Ogbuokiri said that he and his team were at the FCSC in order to forge a collaboration with the commission. He urged civil servants to join the institute and be trained as experts in different areas of development and policy .
