Center for Humanitarian Dialogue Seeks Synergy to End Humanitarian Crisis in North-east

Center for Humanitarian Dialogue Seeks Synergy to End Humanitarian Crisis in North-east

By Kingsley Nwezeh

The Center for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) has called for synergy among stakeholders in the North-east including policy makers, the military, international actors, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and communities in order to end the humanitarian crisis in the North-east.

Speaking at the two-day summit of stakeholders in the North-east humanitarian crisis themed: “North-east Symposium on Reconciliation, Resettlement and Reintegration” in Abuja, Country Manager of HD, Mrs Millicent Lewis-Ojumu, said the insurgency war in the region had created humanitarian crisis following the displacement of two million people.
She observed that a disconnect existed in the way actors involved the management of insurgency and the concomitant humanitarian crisis operated.

She noted that a national peace architecture was missing hence the need for synergy amongst the actors and the need to evolve an alternative narrative.
“What we want to see is a clear alignment for all the stakeholders, HD works quietly in the communities and therefore, we require state and federal authorities to also be well connected.

“Presently, there is a bit of a disconnect. There are various actors doing various things, the coordination, the national peace architecture is missing”, she said.
Ojomo affirmed that stakeholders would seek to draft alternative narratives in communicating messages of peace with regards to peaceful coexistence of the communities.

“We are very much keen to have these kind of events to push for policy dialogue, whereby, we in the communities can help the policymakers understand and feel the weight.
“I think as you have heard, we have been having colleagues here that were involved in drafting the alternative narrative work. This is very much the heartbeat of the people in communicating messages of peace and how to live together”, she said.

According to HD country manager, “if we can get the policymakers to understand and use tools like the alternative narrative messaging within the work of integration, it is much easier we have found for community members to understand where they are coming from and support the implementation of such policies.
“So we need that synergy and that linkage across all the partners to ensure that we do reach the solution we want”.

She said the symposium was motivated by the need to provide stakeholders a platform for learning and experience sharing, expert presentations, panel discussion and facilitated dialogue to identify emerging, issues, gaps, challenges and articulate recommendations for strengthening the design and delivery of peace building, reintegration, reconciliation and resetlement efforts in North-east Nigeria.

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