Action Aid Holds Community Engagement, Gives Back To Society To Commemorate Its 25 Years.

By Ferdinand Olise

As part of its commitment to transparency, accountability, and people-centred governance, the ActionAid Nigeria has visited the Pasepa Community, Bwari Abuja, for community engagement to amplify the voices of the people, and give back to the society.

The Action Aid Nigeria which hosted its International Secretary General, Arthur Larok on Thursday, 27th November, 2025 on the community visit to Pasepa Community as part of activities to commemorate ActionAid Nigeria at twenty five, engaged directly with the community residents in order to gain firsthand insight into their lives realities.

The Secretary General, Action Aid International, Mr Arthur Larok, emphasized the urgent need to invest in young people, noting that the visit was to demonstrate that it is possible to transform communities through investments at community level, adding that, Investment in education is very important, as there is no nation that will transform without its people being educated.

“Nigeria its an impressive country one because I was told first like a joke that if you have not been to Nigeria you have not been to Africa, so I’m very happy to be in Nigeria and very happy to have come to Africa finally so of course, Nigeria internationally is known for many things, and so I had my own anxieties when I was coming to your country, so, for the last three days I’ve really been very impressed by the people they are; very kind, they are willing to help, and they care. So I’m very happy I have a very good impression about your country”, he said.

“I’ve been reading stories about the impact that ActionAid has created, I’ve visited our offices.
I’ve spoken to our staff. Just coming to this community to listen to the voice of women, the best assessment and measure of impact is when you listen to people. It’s not how many papers or reports you write and read. It’s when you listen to people and what impact such as trainings have been to them, exposures have been to them”.

“So, when people, women and young people, speak from a position of power I feel very proud.
And moving into the future, we will need to invest even more in people. There is no transformation that happens anywhere without people. So, we will continue to work with young people. We will continue to work with women because, we know through these important demographics, transformation will not happen only at community level, but also at national level.

Mr Larok also urged the Nigerian government to acknowledge the work that Civil Society Organizations do, like ActionAid Nigeria, and therefore create a good environment for organizations like ActionAid to flourish.

“Because when ActionAid succeeds, communities also succeed. So that’s the main message, but secondly, the investments that non-governmental organizations make are inadequate to completely transform societies, because we can only be in fewer communities.

“The government that collects taxes from people, that is responsible for long-term development planning,
needs to learn from experiences and progress that non-governmental organisations make and upscale this, because, ultimately, the government has the responsibility to deliver services to people.
It’s not NGOs that should be delivering services forever.

“So, we come to demonstrate that it is possible to transform communities through investments at community level, and government needs to learn from this and pick this up and expand it at scale. Investment in education is very, very important, there is no nation that will transform without its people being educated. So I think the government must prioritise that”.

“They must look for resources and ensure that priorities during budgeting are made very clear that each and every expenditure of government must impact communities, must impact people. That way, Nigeria will transform”, Mr Larok said.

Meanwhile, the Country Director, Action Aid Nigeria, Mr Andrew Mamedu, said they are ensuring that government is held accountable, and brought to respond to the welfare of communities, adding that the Pasepa Community is a very hard-to-reach community which is why they chose to reach out to them.

“We’ve been in this community for over 12 years, making impact from where it was, where we started, to the changes that have happened in collaboration with various stakeholders, working and ensuring that government is held accountable and brought to respond to the welfare of the community.

“Pasepa is one of the several communities we work with in FCT, and you can see that it’s a very hard-to-reach community. So, you know, when you are in Abuja, you’ll have an impression that, oh, this is what Abuja is like. Pasepa is part of FCT, and it gives you a clear picture of what the rural, what those living in poverty, real poverty, what their life is like, what their daily living is like, where they live, and that’s why we chose Pasepa.

“That’s how all the Communities we work with in FCT, that’s what they look like. They’re in hard, difficult terrain. So we just had to choose one of them to see it, are we impressed with what we are seeing here?
The answer is no, we’re definitely not impressed. We definitely can do better. We can see more changes.
We can see more impact. We can see more livelihood improvements. We can see more social services.

“Entering the community, the first thing that stands out, The first thing that stands out is the number of politicians coming in here. So politicians coming here means that they can find their way here. It’s a difficult terrain, like I said. But if they can find their way here, they can as well attract infrastructure, social amenities to these communities. So, we want in the next couple of few months, few years, when you come to this community, those things are there, that’s when we’ll be happy, that’s when we’ll be pleased”, he said.

On her part, the Partnership and Local Rights Programme Officer, Action Aid Nigeria, Hajara Opaluwa-Adamu, said they work on governance, agriculture, women’s rights, promotion of education, health, and well-being, noting that in terms of education in the Pasepa community, they work with the women farmers who are being taught on agroecology practice.

The community outreach formed part of the reception of the Secretary General of Action Aid International, on the sidelines of the commemoration of ActionAid Nigeria at 25.