The Skills Covered in Women Governance Training

Who attends

The Women Governance Training programme is open to women who want to take part in public decision making. A participant may come from any local government area in Nigeria. No prior experience with public records is needed.

What a participant learns

Reading a public record. A participant learns to read a budget record line by line. A participant studies a policy document to find the sections that affect health and education. A participant builds the skill to follow government decisions through each spending cycle.

Preparing questions for public meetings. A participant practises writing a question for a ministry. A participant learns to frame a question about a specific budget line or policy clause. A participant walks through sending the question to the correct office.

Taking part in a public meeting. A participant studies the format of a local government meeting. A participant prepares to ask a question in person. A participant builds the skill to listen to an answer and record it in writing.

How a session runs

The training opens with a review of a real budget document. Each participant reads the same document the WATAG budget monitoring campaign uses. The trainer walks through each section.

The middle phase focuses on question writing. Participants work in pairs to draft questions for a specific ministry. Each pair presents their question to the group for feedback.

The final phase is a simulated public meeting. One participant acts as a council chair. Another participant asks their prepared question. The group records the answer and discusses what to do next.

What a participant leaves with

A participant leaves the Women Governance Training programme with a reading notebook. The notebook contains notes on the budget document studied. It holds the practised questions drafted for a ministry. It includes the record of the simulated meeting. This notebook is the participant's own reference for future work in their local government.