The action will take into account the lessons learned from previous EU funded democracy support projects to a great extent. Past EU-funded programmes over the recent years to democracy in Nigeria have been studied in great detail in order for this project proposal to ensure continuity and coherence with previous actions that has generated good results and fill the gaps of previous shortfalls.

Considering that the National Indicative Programme (NIP) is a management tool to identify and define actions for achieving the objectives set down in the Country Strategy Paper (CSP), the EU-SDGN 2016 – 2020 Project constitutes the implementation of the NIP intervention sector aimed at contributing to the goal of enhanced growth and sustainable development in Nigeria.

Nigeria's development goals can only be reasonably achieved within a context of a sustained commitment on the part of the government to good governance and the enforcement of rule of law based on a reasonable level of internal security. The fragile democratic system still poses some risks to the country’s stability and outcomes of its reform process. It is important in the run up to the 2019 general elections that concerted efforts are made to strengthen the democratic institutions and the electoral process by ensuring the conditions that makes for fair and credible elections with meaningful participation of all sections of society, including women and youth and marginalised groups.