Centre for Law and Social Action (CLASA)
CLASA is an independent,
non-profit policy centre in Nigeria. Its purpose is to bring together scholars and activists in
law, the social sciences and the humanities for inter-disciplinary
research and advocacy on governance, human development and social
policy. The organization, a member of Kabissa since 2003, stands out as an innovative contributor to e-mail networks such as the African Democracy Forum and makes remarkable use of ICT despite the formidable infrastructure challenges it faces in Nigeria.
Spotlight on CLASA
Centre for Law and Social Action (CLASA)
10, Alao Street
Off Rasmon Street, Osolo Way
Ajao Estate, Airport Road
Lagos, Nigeria
Tel: + 234 (1) 475 2956, 790 1141
Email: clasa@clasa.org
Web: www.clasa.org
About CLASA
The Centre for Law and Social Action (CLASA), an independent, non-profit policy centre, brings together scholars and activists in law, the social sciences and the humanities for inter-disciplinary research and advocacy on governance, human development and social policy. CLASA informs policy dialogue and actuates political action through research and advocacy.
CLASA's advisory board include eminent scholars of law, the humanities and social sciences including Prof. Peter Rosenblum (Columbia University), Dr. Darren Kew (University of Massachusetts-Boston), Prof. Leslye Obiora (University of Arizona), Dr. Sven Spengemann (UN Mission in Iraq) and Prof. Ebere Onwudiwe (Central State University, Ohio).
Members of CLASA's board of directors include Frances Ogwo (HURILAWS), Chidi Odinkalu (Open Society Justice Initiative), Waziri Adio (UNICEF), Dr. Sam Amadi (Office of the Senate President), Dr. Mutuma Ruteere (Kenya Human Rights Commission) and Ndubisi Obiorah (Executive Director).
CLASA was founded in October 2003; it operated from temporary offices until September 2004 when it moved to its present office at Ajao Estate near the Lagos airport.
Our Mission
CLASA’s work integrates social research, legal and policy analysis as well as quantitative research, drawing upon contemporary thought in political economy and public policy.
CLASA works towards –
- Securing and expanding effective popular participation in the political and public policy arenas
- Ensuring accountable governance
- Improving the socio-economic conditions of the poor and disadvantaged
- Ensuring open and fair elections
- Consolidating democracy
- Establishing transparency
- Promoting human and peoples’ rights
- Promoting progressive social policy
- Promoting legal and judicial reform
CLASA’s Strategies include –
- Research
- Analysis
- Advocacy
CLASA employs research, campaigning, mobilization, legislative advocacy and Social Action Litigation in promoting its goals.
Ongoing projects include initiatives on campaign finance reform, Pentecostalism and public life, access to justice and clinical legal education.
CLASA and ICT
We use ICT to communicate with stakeholders and partners. Much of our work involves advocacy for social change so we use ICT to communicate our views and positions to key actors and change agents and to disseminate same to the wider public. We also seek to mobilize support from civil society within and outside Nigeria and ICT is the prime medium by which we do so.
We typically use email to send invitations to meeting, events and activities and then follow-up via telephone calls. We send snail mail to people whom we know cannot be reached via email.
We make extensive use of ICT in campaigning. In late 2005 and early 2006, we sent out statements and communications denouncing the attempt by the incumbent government in Nigeria to perpetuate itself in power beyond the April 2007 elections. We participate actively in discussions on governance, human rights and development on various Nigerian and African civil society email listserves.
Cost and speed are major considerations for our adopting ICT as our primary means of communication. Snail mail, radio and television are expensive in Nigeria. Other than printed advocacy materials which we may send to e.g. legislators or local communities , we use email to contact most of the people we work with.
We particularly value being able to contact other NGOs across Africa and the developing world to exchange perspectives and learn from their experiences.
We maintain an email listserve for our political finance reform project via which we disseminate information on our activities and initiatives with regards to political finance. We also have an email mailing list. Most NGOs in Nigeria are on one or the other and thus receive our news and publications regularly. Using our email listserve, CLASA exchanged information with other NGOs on respective electoral reform initiatives and examined possible modes of collaboration to advance our respective objects. In particular, we informed them about the progress of our advocacy efforts on political finance reform and sought to ensure their support for our activities within the broad context of electoral reform in Nigeria. In particular, we discussed the modalities of a pilot project to track campaign expenditure during the 2007 elections. The outcome of these meetings was exchange of information and perspectives, agreement to collaborate to promote electoral reform, identification of potential modes and sites of collaboration.
Our major challenges with the use of ICT are cost, skills and infrastructure. Power supply is unreliable in Nigeria forcing us to depend primarily on gasoline generators which are noisy and expensive to maintain. Web access is very expensive in Nigeria and the ISPs vary widely in quality of service provision and back-up support. We spend approximately US$200/month on ISP charges. Over the last 3 years, we have migrated from one ISP to another in search of affordable and reliable web access. We are on our third ISP as at now.
A major challenge is maintaining our website <www.clasa.org>. We do not as yet have a webmaster and its quite expensive to hire a skilled website developer in Nigeria.
