By Derrick Bangura

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has said that Nigeria now has 3.3 million people displaced by various crisis rocking the nation, even as it revealed that modalities have been adopted that would stop youth from joining jihadists movement in the region.

Speaking at the Opening Ceremony of the Stakeholder Workshop on the Best Practices for Stabilization in West Africa, the Vice President of the ECOWAS Commission, Madam Finda Koroma said the issue of displacement in the West Africa region needs to be addressed.
She said: “We also need to address the crisis of displacement. For instance, Burkina Faso has experienced an explosion in its forced displacement crisis because of militant Islamist group violence originating in Mali. Its current 1.2 million displaced population represents a nine-fold increase from 2019.

“Additionally, violent attacks by Boko Haram in Northeastern Nigeria, have resulted in the displacement of 2.5 million Nigerians, whilst kidnappings, extortion, and organised criminal attacks in the Northwest have displaced an additional 800,000 people.

Koroma said: “We need to find a way to return these communities to the homes, safely.”

She disclosed that: “It is against this backdrop that ECOWAS Commission, in partnership with development organisations and governments, have embarked on an ambitious journey of introducing interventions designed to stabilise conflict affected areas, address the root causes of insecurity, and set them on the path for sustainable development through recovery and building community resilience.

“In partnership with the German government, we have established the ECOWAS Fund for Regional Stabilisation and Development in fragile member states. The objective of this programme is to stabilise conflict affected communities through provision of sustainable economic opportunities and essential services for conflict affected communities, construction or rehabilitation of key national infrastructure and capacity building for governance and security institutions.”

Koroma noted that ECOWAS Stabilisatiom programme was launched in The Gambia as a pilot project and in 2020, Guinea Bissau, Niger and Mali form part of the first phase of the regional project.

She revealed that the programme has so far committed about €45 million in the pilot and regional scale-up phases, stressing that: “The ECOWAS Commission has also contributed US$1 million on an annual basis since 2019.“

She said: “It is worth noting that border communities are often most vulnerable to conflict and that many of our own interventions will necessarily include a cross border element.

“Moreover, projects that are implemented on both sides of border communities foster regional integration which embodies the main mandate of ECOWAS.”

The VP said the UNDP in partnership with Lake Chad Basin Commission had helped to restore social contact between communities and their governments, rebuild trust, and provide communities sustainable livelihood options.

She said: “It’s important to know that we face security challenges, we must also support communities that are affected with stabilization programmes, including public infrastructures; construction and rehabilitation of schools and health centers, support to women and the youth so that they can themselves be trained to get employed or start their own businesses.

“We also invited governors from Niger and Guinea Bissau, unfortunately Mali is under suspension, so we were unable to invite them to be here, but we are confident that this is a new beginning for ECOWAS, whereby anytime there is this peace keeping mission, it will also be matched with the stabilization programme.

“Beyond everything else, it’s the issue of building trust between communities and their governments because this lies at the heart of conflict in everything we do and also to stop the youth from joining jihadist movement, because we are showing them that they can have oppoturnities to learn skills and go to school and do other things. That stop them from actually joining Jihadists movement that led to these problems” she said.

Speaking at the event, the Executive Secretary of Lake Chad Basin Commission, Amb Mamman Nuhu, assured that the effort being made by the

Commission to address the challenges confronting the sub-region through the stabilization program would tackle the fragility and drivers of conflict in the region.

“It will support the most vulnerable of

our population, women and youth, to regain control of their means of

livelihood. This is because this group constitutes the majority of victims of

conflicts and fragility in our region” he added.