The Collaborative Strategy of Women’s NGOs in Nigeria

What kinds of relationships do women's rights activists in non-democratic contexts pursue to advance their agendas? Human rights activists are generally expected to maintain an adversarial stance towards the state, particularly when monitoring or challenging abuses. In Nigeria, however,  women's rights activists often prefer to seek partnerships with the government often as technical advisors over confrontation such as street protest; or rather protest is not the preferred pathway to impact.  Drawing on original interviews with women's NGOs in Abuja and Lagos combined with quantitative analysis of protest trends using ACLED data from Nigeria, we identify  these factors in explaining why women’s NGOs are more likely to forgo protests as a major strategy . 1. Sustaining relationship with the government: Protest might compromise their role as technical advisors for the government which was considered a very important avenue of creating policy changes 2. Maintaining ties to international partners, and overcoming funding constraints. Most NGOs receive international funding which pushes them towards partnership with the government over confrontation such as protest, which has a high cost in terms of human resources. 3. Avoiding backlash. The repercussions of protesting may be high as NGOs have to  comply with complicated legislation which opens them up to government scrutiny. Within the realm of sexual and reproductive rights, protest entails public visibility which may result in backlash from religious and traditional actors. The study contributes to actionable knowledge for understanding human rights activism in countries where civic space is shrinking.