A consortium that involves PIND has won a European Union (EU) grant to implement a peacebuilding project titled, ‘A Community-Centered Approach to Transforming Criminality and Violence in the Niger Delta’, across three states: Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers states. Other consortium members are Search for Common Ground, (Lead), Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN), and the Academic Associates Peace Works. In the next 18 months, the project will seek to foster inclusive community security approaches to addressing systemic drivers of violence and criminality in Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers states.
The project involves specific objectives among them, empowering diverse community actors to address social inclusion, lack of economic opportunity and strengthening collaborations amongst communities, security actors and the private sector around preventing and responding to the triggers and core drivers of violence and criminality.
This is another opportunity for PIND to showcase the Early Warning Early response (EWER) system platform and provide training for community actors, to enhance the efficient and effective use of the EWER system.
As part of the initial activities, there was a presentation by the members of the consortium and the European Union team to the Ministry of Niger Delta Development. The project consortium was led by Fatima Abubakar, Country Director search for Common Ground, while the EU team was led by Ruben Alba Aguilera, Head of Cooperation of the European Union (EU). The delegation from the Ministry of Niger Delta Development was led by the Honorable Minister, Engr. Abubakar Momoh. Other representatives of the Ministry present at the meeting were the Permanent Secretary Dr. Shuaib Belgore and key Directors.
The initial meeting will be followed by the project launch at a date to be announced later.
