Chairperson & Executive Director's Annual Message

Dear Friends and Partners

2023 saw us exceeding expectations and achieving several milestones as we consolidated our previous work and successes while exploring new opportunities. Despite the removal of fuel subsidy with its attendant increase in the price of goods and services, rising inflation and foreign exchange rate fluctuations which affected purchasing power, and the continued emigration of Nigeria's skilled workforce (the "Japa" syndrome), together with our partners, we continued to find creative, people‑centered ways to carry out our mission to facilitate peace and equitable economic growth in the Niger Delta.

We deepened our involvement in implementing the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) community engagement component through the Ford Foundation‑funded The Bridges Project. We facilitated awareness creation and capacity‑building workshops for stakeholders, including non‑governmental and community‑based organizations, to enhance their knowledge of the PIA provisions and build capacity to implement the Act effectively. The Bridges Project also inaugurated a multi‑stakeholder platform (MSP) whose mandate is to help the host community Development Trusts operate successfully.

Through strategic collaborations with the government, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders, we reinforced existing peacebuilding structures such as the Prevent Committees, PreventCouncils, PeaceChampions, the conflict EarlyWarning‑Early Response (EWER) system, and the Peace Map. To further promote a culture of peace by fostering changed attitudes and behaviors among young Niger Deltans, we facilitated the establishment of PeaceClubs in secondary schools and universities.

We continued to facilitate vocational and soft skills training through our Youth Employment Pathways project, and we held another round of a Business Fund Challenge to support the transition into entrepreneurship for interested youth beneficiaries. Sixty‑six successful contestants received grants totaling NGN 42 million to establish their businesses. A significant activity this year was implementing the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)‑led Health Electrification and TelecommunicationAlliance (HETA) project. Using our proven Access to Energy model of providing reliable, affordable solar power to last‑mile communities while contributing our financial and technical resources and leveraging a grant of over $200,000 from the Alliance, we partnered with several private sector players to enable renewable energy access to 12 healthcare facilities across the Niger Delta.

Through our Markets Systems Development project, we continued to support smallholder farmers and enterprises, leveraging N13.79 billion in investments from the public and private sectors to help farmers and small business owners adopt new practices and innovations. Our activities helped create over 14,600 jobs in the agro‑allied and renewable energy sectors through commercially incentivized service providers. In exploring new frontiers in 2023, we commenced work towards adopting impact investment as a non‑traditional, alternative way of funding our program activities and forged alliances with experts and leaders. We also initiated and completed a brand audit of PIND as we look towards launching a new brand strategy that strongly emphasizes our progress to date and positions us for greater business.