Inclusive Peacebuilding and Decision-Making

TARGETING THE MARGINALIZED

For the advancement of sustainable peace in Nigeria's Niger Delta region, our peacebuilding interventions in 2021 included: mentorships, conflict mitigation, skills enhancements, and forums on peace and stability. 78 female peace actors out of 228 participated in these various interventions in the year. Furthermore, women constituted more than 1/3 of the 577 peace actors that took action to mitigate 191 local conflicts in 2021.

We also facilitated women's equitable involvement in community decision-making. This was done through small grants issued to local organizations to tackle conflicts in marginalized coastal communities under our peacebuilding actions. One such grant was for the Development Initiative for Community Impact (DICI)'s project on Promoting Social Cohesion through Mitigating of Conflict Drivers in the Coastal Community of Aja-Amita'. DICI's project mission was to reduce disputes around community leadership. So, they established a framework for the peaceful transition of leadership in the community; reunited the groups involved in the dispute; set up an Aja-Amita Community Peacebuilding Committee; and inaugurated the Aja-Amita Inclusive Peace Committee (AIPC) as a subchapter of Partners for Peace (P4P) Network. A first for the Aja-Amita community, the greatest outcome of the project was the inclusion of women of all abilities and ages in these peacebuilding committees.

About Half of the Nominees were Women!

Rachael Misan-Ruppee, executive director, Development Initiative for Community Impact (DICI)

During the intervention funded by PIND to end the conflict in Aja- Amita community in Warri North local government area, Delta State, we observed that women were not part of decision-making groups and forums in the community. We learned that this was due to traditional and religious practices in the community and intimidation from the men. The women told us that each time they asked to be included, they were side-lined and hushed. To resolve this, when asking elders to nominate members to Aja-Amita Inclusive Peace Committee (AIPC), the peacebuilding organ we formed in the community as part of our intervention, we specifically requested that each family nominate at least one woman. We also made women's inclusion part of the constitution of the AIPC. Seven women were eventually nominated to the 15-person committee, a near 1:1 ratio! The women were elated at finally being able to contribute to the community's development via decision-making.