ECOWAS begins resilience, security assessment in Nigeria

The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, has commenced a resilience and human security assessment in member states.

It said the exercise would provide a better understanding of security dynamics and trends, and identify and strengthen resilience structures that support human security in member states.

The project is co-funded by the European Union and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

After a technical session in Abuja on Monday, the Director, Office for Strategic Preparedness and Response, Nigeria, Chris Ngwodo, said the meeting is an inception dialogue for the commencement of the country resilience and human security assessment for Nigeria.

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“It’s a study that is being undertaken across West Africa but Nigeria is the first country to undertake it.

“It is aimed at mapping human security vulnerability and resilience factors within our country.

“We want to achieve an understanding of the complex issues that underline conflicts and instability within Nigeria, we want to map the resilience factors that can help us to become better in combating those issues, issues that engender conflicts and strive and above all we want to be able to get empirical data that can be used to reform policy interventions by the government,” he said.

He said the exercise was a sequel to a human security vulnerability assessment exercise that was conducted in 2018.

“The findings have been very useful in helping to establish early warning across West Africa and in Nigeria in particular”, Ngwodo said, adding that “this is a continuation in that particular line of enquiry.”

He said the team will visit hot spots and places that have proved resilience to conflicts and violence in the past, “because we want to understand the resilience factors as well”.