The US through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), said that over the past five years, $15 million has been invested in Community Initiatives to Promote Peace (CIPP) programme. It said it was working with Nigeria to address and mitigate the drivers of conflict in northern and middle-belt Nigeria, including ethnic, regional, and sectarian tensions across communities.
In a statement, USAID posited that the initiative had trained more than 46,000 community members, including traditional leaders, women, men, and youth, in six states. It listed the states as Benue, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kogi, and Plateau, where skills such as dispute resolution, early warning and early response, reconciliation efforts, and prevention of violent extremism, were imparted.
The CIPP programme, it said, had helped mitigate violent conflict in at-risk communities and engaged women and youth in peace processes. The statement disclosed that after four years of implementation, the study showed that only 29 per cent of CIPP treatment communities experienced violent incidents, compared to 55 per cent in control communities with a difference of 26 per cent.
