On Nigeria Big Bet: Final Evaluation Report

Background

Since 2015, our On Nigeria Big Bet has supported Nigerian-led efforts to reduce corruption that strengthen transparency, accountability, and participation. 

On Nigeria understood that reducing corruption would not be straightforward, and that making progress was likely to require engaging with system dynamics, iterating, and learning over time. The On Nigeria theory of change, represented as a tree, sought to strengthen the accountability ecosystem—the dynamic relationships between, and practices and functions undertaken by, a diverse set of anti-corruption actors representing civil society, the media, communities, and government. 

By contributing to a more robust, resilient ecosystem, On Nigeria hoped to pave the way for systems and actions to more effectively prevent, prosecute and reject corruption, which would eventually give rise to more transparency, participation, and accountability—and ultimately, contribute to reducing corruption in Nigeria.

Through targeted support, we aimed to bolster Nigerian-led efforts to strengthen accountability and reduce corruption. Our multifaceted strategy had the following complementary areas of focus:

• Enabling independent Nigerian media and journalism outlets to investigate and expose corruption and share anti-corruption success stories.
• Strengthening the criminal justice system through nationwide adoption and implementation of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act and complementary laws and policies.
• Supporting Nigerian civil society organizations, communities, and social influencers to use media reports to call for action, mobilize to demand accountability, and advocate for policy changes that make it easier to prevent, detect, and punish corruption.
• Promoting behavior change by supporting faith leaders and their communities, performers, and creators to influence social norms, behaviors, and attitudes towards corruption.

Our work and that of our grantee partners is intended to further gender equity and social inclusion as it advances the larger anti-corruption goal. 

What We Evaluated

On Nigeria was always accompanied by an Evaluation and Learning Partner (first EnCompass LLC, followed by Itad), which collected evidence and supported learning throughout program implementation. This report presents the results of the final evaluation of On Nigeria conducted by Itad in 2025.

The final evaluation built on the 2019 evaluation and an initial evaluation, and applied a systems lens to explore six overarching questions that focused on assessing the results to which On Nigeria contributed, as well as understanding the program’s legacy. Itad worked with the On Nigeria Program Team, grantees, and an advisory group of Nigerian experts to co-create the evaluation design, integrating and adapting a variety of methods—social network analysis, 15 case studies, a review of hundreds of documents, the Delphi technique, and evidence from 22 existing learning products—to deliver rigorous, relevant, and actionable insights and lessons from the experience of On Nigeria.

What We Learned

The Nigeria context offered both opportunities and challenges for On Nigeria’s work, as social media, protest movements, turnover, leadership changes, the closing of civic space, electoral and economic instability, and the COVID-19 pandemic all affected the program throughout the decade.

Strengthened Accountability

On Nigeria made a difference, broadening and strengthening multiple dimensions of the accountability ecosystem in Nigeria. The Big Bet also helped to advance the prevention, prosecution, and rejection of corruption: the administration of criminal justice is stronger than in 2020, anti-corruption agencies’ performance have improved, and more citizens and officials are now aware of and willing to report corruption.

Increased Transparency and Participation

Modest, if localized, improvements in transparency and participation have also emerged, with many communities now more engaged in monitoring the delivery of public services and being more vocal about changes, while the transparency of many government agencies has improved, albeit from a low baseline. At the same time, On Nigeria helped prevent backsliding in accountability amid deteriorating conditions for civic space and a series of political and economic crises.

Additional Work Remains

These achievements, however, are still fragile. Gender equity and social inclusion remains a work in progress in the accountability ecosystem, and much more is needed to further deepen and sustain collaborative networks, scale community-focused transparency and monitoring platforms, and build the skills of legal system professionals and media actors across the country.

Key Lessons for Funders

The experience of On Nigeria offers two key lessons for other donors interested in advancing systems change efforts:

• On Nigeria’s systems-focused strategy of supporting dynamic, locally led, complementary, and flexible initiatives at multiple levels offers a viable approach for driving sustainable progress towards systems change.
• On Nigeria’s ways of working, or grantcraft, were indispensable to the results to which it contributed. Its approach demonstrates the value of tailoring work contextually, prioritizing and addressing grantee needs, and making flexibility and local leadership central. While these are common refrains in contemporary social impact work and philanthropy, this “way of doing business” is rarer in practice.

View the full report