US, UK Partner Nigerian Group to Promote Peace Building Initiatives

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

United States and United Kingdom international development agencies, in collaboration with Conflict Research Network West Africa (CORN), unveiled a digital platform that will help track various peace-building initiatives in the country, including efforts of state and non-state actors involved in the conflict resolution.

The intervention, supported by international and local development partners, including Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Nigeria Partnership for Peace-building and Development Initiative (NPAID), among others, is designed to provide greater visibility to conflict resolution efforts through the documentation, archiving, and systematic mapping of peace actions and peace-building initiatives across Nigeria.

It also seeks to aggregate structured data on peace actors, initiatives, and peace-related events across Nigeria, designed to make peace effort visible, connected, searchable, and learnable.

The unveiling of the digital platform, which attracted major stakeholders within the peace-building and advocacy ecosystem, explored the role of religious leaders, traditional rulers, women and youths in peace-building and conflict resolution in Nigeria.

Speaking during the unveiling of the platform, known as Nigerian Peace Web, on Wednesday, Executive Director, Conflict Research Network West Africa, Dr. Timpreye Felix Allison, said while incidents of violence and insecurity in Nigeria were widely reported, peace and conflict resolution efforts remained undocumented, disconnected, and often too invisible.

Allison stated, “The starting point for today is simple but profound. Nigeria’s conflict landscape is visible; its peace is not.

“Across the country, community mediators, faith leaders, women’s networks, youth groups, traditional authorities, and state peace agencies work every day to prevent violence and manage tensions.

“However, much of that work remains undocumented, disconnected, and often too invisible.”

Allison, who was represented by Obinna Chukwuezie, said the Nigeria Peacework platform was a collective response to fill the gap and provide documented data on various peace initiatives and the level of success they achieved.

He said, “It is an open-source digital platform that aggregates structured data on peace actors, initiatives, and peace-related events across Nigeria, designed to make peace effort visible, connected, searchable, and learnable.”

Speaking on the objective of the initiative, Project Officer of the Nigerian Peace Web, George Blesmans, said it sought to project peace efforts and promote conflict resolution, as against current emphasis on highlighting violent incidents and their root causes.

Blesmans stated, “I think, two things, first, to begin to shift that discourse away from just exclusively focusing on conflict and violence. That’s not to downplay the importance of understanding the root causes of violence and addressing the root causes of violence, but it’s also extremely important to put the spotlight on often overlooked and invisible instances of peace building, actors and initiatives that are taking place across the country every single day.

“The second thing is to fill a gap. There is a gap in peace data.  We have very little systematic knowledge, aggregated knowledge, about peace building, and yet it is happening.”

Blesmans said it was important to highlight the role of traditional mediation structures, women’s groups, youth groups, and religious leaders in the peace building landscape, which helped to complement the more formal structures of peace building in the country.

Programme Manager of CORN, Omolara Raji, said the organisation was promoting research in conflict resolution initiatives so as to help influence the policy direction of government aimed at maintaining peace and stability in the country.

Raji said CORN was working with government through the Institute of Peace and Conflict Resolution to promote research in peace building.

She stated, “Some of the recommendations that we see from our research are what we’re translating into policy right now, and that’s why we are working on peace.  It’s one thing for you to be able to do research, another thing for you to be able to provide solution, and that’s what conflict Research Network is doing currently – providing solutions.”