Required Nomination Information

The Marketplace

Social Entrepreneur Information

Name -Mohammed Bougei Attah.

Organisation – NGO Guide 2000

Email Address–,

Telephone Number - +234 -8034537392, 62 – 212310

Fax Number - +234 – 62 – 249387

Physical Address: - 2nd Floor, Gidan Abbas MG, 12 Sultan Road, GRA PO Box 9689, Kaduna.

What problem is the social entrepreneur addressing?

Lack of focus, accountability on the part of non-profits, and unhealthy rivalry among NGOs,which has slowed down development over the years in Nigeria/ Africa.

What makes this individual a Social entrepreneur?

One, he is a change maker who has succeeded within a short period of time to bring about positive changes within NGOs in Nigeria and beyond.

How does the individual’s approach to social change comply with the following criteria?

Innovation – As a volunteer, today he is the first NGO worker in Nigeriato initiative a rallying point for NGOs, government and international development partners, IDP, as a means to addressing the corruption, lack of accountability and rivalry that have rendered the sector inactive over the years. This effort came at a time when various stakeholders have lost focus and became politically motivated. More importantly, these changes occurred within a short period of time with little or no fund to support the efforts. He established NGO Guide 2000, an NGO–Service Consortium to help reinvigorate the third sector and created ‘Annual All Nigeria NGO Summit & Exposition,’ a rallying point for stakeholders, to network, partner and share innovative ideas in managing not-for-profit organizations and towards better delivery of their services. In addition, he established NGO Network, a general interest magazine for the third sector in Nigeria and sub –Saharan Africa, first of its kind in the region, to serve as a voice for the voluntary organizations.

Scalability–It will be aptly correct to say that through Mr. Attah’s effort, through his organization, now serves as model to many in Nigeria, and the global NGO Community did not fail in recognizing this too. For example, and as a result of the impacts of these initiatives, he was recently appointed as the Country Representative for the World Association of Non–Governmental Organization, WANGO in Nigeria. This is in recognition of the positivedirection and broad based initiative that earned his organization support from NGO leaders across Africa. Such great NGO personality asDr. Mrs. Rose Ekeleme, Vice President – Africa, International Association for Volunteer Effort, IAVE, described Mr. Attah initiative as ‘saviour of our time’. Determined to meeting their organization’s end goals, he proposed and served on the WANGO Committee at the UN Headquarters in Bangkok to draft an International Code of Conduct and Ethics for NGOs, a document that is currently being adopted among the NGO community worldwide. Please visit and click on Code of Ethics for details.

With these great achievements and contributions to the larger NGO sector, Mr. Attah did not lost touch with the grassroots. Though published quarterly due to minimal funds, his organization, through his efforts has launched another initiative to help raised fund for a monthly publication of the magazine. And campaign will commence at the 5th Annual All Nigeria NGO Summit Exposition, tagged ‘Bauchi 2005’ and scheduled for February 23-26, 2005. His efforts, at reaching their goals are endless and are strategically placed to do that as the WANGO National Representative for Nigeriaand Deputy Africa Coordinator. And to prove the above, he returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo recently on a 6-day mission to help re-organize the NGO community in that country. He had previously visited Ghana, Togo, Cameroon,Sudan among others spreading the words on how to make NGO work in Africa.

Sustainability: Though from the foregoing, the projectswere initiated as self-sustaining as mentioned above, I would like to throw more light on specific areas that will no doubt generate sustainability. One of the lessons or new approach learnt at the annual summit of NGOs organized by his organization is the need to for volunteers to reduce over-dependence on foreign donors and to look internally for the support of their programmes. In doing this, they succeeded in making participants at the annual event and the larger NGOs in Nigeriapay subsidized fees to attend the annual eventas a means of self-evaluation. Until this summit of NGOs began in the year 2001, the practice has been that many practitioners wait to be sponsored to all events and programmes, which rendered most of them inactive.

Secondly the NGO Network magazine covers news and events of NGO activities across the region and beyond. The magazine is distributed free-of-charge to encourage large readership, and due to the inability of many to subscribe. The idea is to make the magazine a voice for the sector and carry everyone along thereby creating more awareness in the civil society. And with this, advert placements are easily available which has helped to sustain the publication till date.As propagated recently, the idea to request NGOs and other parties subscribe to the magazine through purchase, after a period of time will no doubt yield more positive result as a means of sustaining the publications and in consideration of the impact over time.