The 2025 Ford Foundation Grantee Convening was held from 3rd to 4th November 2025 at Lake Greenfield Hotel in Abuja, Nigeria, with grantees from Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal. The event was organized under the leadership of Dr. Catherine ChiChi Aniagolu-Okoye, the Regional Director of Ford Foundation, Office for West Africa (OWA). The theme for the programme was “Shifting Narrative: Reimagining Possibilities and Reclaiming Agency”.
The two-day meeting brought together Office for West Africa grantees working across Ford Foundation’s two pillars of work, namely Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice (GREJ) and Natural Resources and Climate Justice (NRCJ), as well as the broader intersectional focus areas. This strategic engagement aimed to deepen relationships and partnerships among grantees and also provided a valuable platform and opportunity to share and foster learning on institutional sustainability (Learn, Share, Utilize, and Collaborate). There was a presentation on Legal, Structural, and Financial Compliance. Additionally, there was a panel discussion titled “From the Eyes of an Outsider,” which centered on grantees, narratives, and impacts. The discussants were from Catalytica Consulting, based in the USA, and Chizulu Uwolloh, Program Assistant, Office for West Africa, moderated it.
The second day was purely a cohort session, and grantees were grouped into three based on their areas of work. RESCONI participated in the Natural Resource and Climate Justice Cohort Session, where deliberations were held on the Bayelsa Report titled "An Environmental Genocide: Counting the Human and Environmental Cost of Oil in Bayelsa, Nigeria." This report highlighted the devastating impact of oil exploration, pollution, and severe environmental degradation, health issues, and socio-economic challenges faced by local communities. It was evident that the management and utilization of natural resources leave much to be desired; for this reason, there is an urgency to curb negative activities that threaten their use and sustainability.
