Education
National Assembly directorate trained on how to use evidence in legislative oversight – EnviroNews
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The Directorate of Legislative Budget and Planning of Nigeria’s National Assembly (NASS) has successfully completed a three-day capacity-building workshop designed to improve its staff’s understanding of how to use evidence in legislative budgeting, policy analysis, monitoring, and supervision.
According to Cloneshouse, the programme’s facilitator, effective parliamentary oversight requires continuous learning and relearning, which is why it chose to focus on important topics such as budget scrutiny, value-for-money analysis, evidence-informed policy analysis, and monitoring.
Speaking at the event, which took place in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, from Monday, August 31, to Thursday, September 3, 2026, Oludotun Babayemi, director of Evidence and Intelligence at Cloneshouse, stated that, in contrast to the traditional classroom learning system, the exercise combined technical sessions with hands-on demonstrations, case exercises, group work, peer learning, and the development of tools that participants can adapt to their daily responsibilities.
He explained that his organisation intentionally used the method to allow participants to explore practical approaches to analysing government budget documents, identifying expenditure patterns and risks, assessing economy, efficiency, effectiveness, and equity, and developing stronger questions for budget defence and legislative oversight.
Additionally, the monitoring and evaluation expert revealed that a critical component of the programme was the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in legislative research and budget analysis.
According to him, it is essential, as the objective is to enable participants to explore how AI can assist in tasks such as summarising documents, identifying key issues, and formulating initial analytical questions, all while ensuring professional judgement, confidentiality, source verification, and accountability are upheld.
The knowledge gained, he explained, allowed the beneficiaries to develop practical resources, including tools for budget scrutiny and value-for-money assessments, templates for policy analysis and evidence verification, monitoring resources, data analysis frameworks, guidance on responsible AI, and concise one-page briefing formats suitable for legislators.
“Effective capacity development should go beyond knowledge transfer to provide professionals with practical tools they can apply within their institutional workflows,” Babayemi stated.
He was given an award by the directorate in recognition of his role and value he offered in ensuring that the programme was successful.
The award, according to Babayemi, recognised the quality, relevance, and practical value of the capacity-strengthening engagement, particularly its focus on equipping participants with tools and analytical approaches directly applicable to their legislative responsibilities.
Some of the participants who spoke with EnviroNews on the sidelines of the event described it as incredibly enriching, educative, and thought-provoking. They acknowledged that its practical approach to budget scrutiny, policy analysis, and the use of AI for analytical tasks is highly relevant and will certainly help them in carrying out their work.
According to Cloneshouse, the programme’s practical methods are a reflection of its broader approach to tailor-made monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) capacity development, which is designed around an organisation’s specific responsibilities, evidence needs and decision-making processes rather than a one-size-fits-all curriculum.
In conclusion, the programme emphasises an important lesson for organisations in the public sector. It also showed that improving the use of evidence involves more than just producing more data; rather, it involves developing the ability to challenge evidence, analyse it, confirm findings, share them, and use them to improve decision-making.
By Etta Michael Bisong, Abuja