Nigeria - Strategic Conflict Assessment : Methodology, Key Findings and Lessons Learnt

Abstract

The need to support a Strategic Conflict Assessment (SCA) was agreed by donors in December 2001, and supported by President Obasanjo. The central guiding principle was that the SCA process should be led by the national Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), in the Presidency. Local ownership and capacity building were considered key to achieving credibility and sustainability. Technical and financial support was provided to IPCR and local stakeholders by some of Nigeria's major international donors: DFID; UNDP; USAID; and the World Bank, who formed an SCA Advisory Group to IPCR. The Advisory Group proved to be a vital structure for collective decision-making. This approach was chosen over the more traditional single-donor approach to draw upon a wide range of international expertise and experience, to share resource costs and to mitigate political risk to donors. Donor cooperation and collaboration meant that donors were able to cover areas where partners may not have had the capacity or mandate. This was the first time, globally, that a national conflict assessment had ever been supported by a group of donors. Conflict assessments by individual donors are often not shared beyond the sponsoring donor. Where they are shared, they are often edited to remove "sensitive" parts, thus defeating the purpose of the analysis and making it difficult for stakeholders and other donors to benefit.