On September 12, the Presidential Committee on the North-East Initiative held the third edition of its Monthly Coordination Forum in Abuja.
It had over 100 participants in attendance including sector representatives (INGOs, UN agencies, and MDAs), National NGOs active in the North East, the Office of the Vice President, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Federal Ministry of Budget and National Planning (MBNP) and security agencies.
Participants at the forum discussed the feedback and resolutions reached at the last meeting, high priority needs and funding gaps in intervention deliveries in the North East and updates on the formulation and funding of the Humanitarian Response Plan for 2018.
The forum broke into syndicate sessions where actors addressed sector-specific issues. Among the highlights of these sessions are PCNI’s ongoing discussions with the federal government’s N-Teach Programme to work on boosting teacher recruitment to meet the manpower needs of the education sector in the North East. UNICEF is already running a similar programme with N-Teach in Yobe State. PCNI will expand this to other states.
Regarding the plight of displaced Nigerians currently in neighbouring countries, the Tripartite Meeting to work out the coordinated return of refugees from Cameroon has been held. PCNI is part of the Technical Working Group and will host its secretariat.
PCNI is working with security agencies to develop a harmonized framework for the reestablishment of civil authority in liberated and reclaimed areas. Work is also ongoing to drive the operationalization of the framework once it is fully developed and approved.
The forum also featured a presentation by the Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL) delivered by Marguerita Aswani who expressed her organization’s desire to collaborate with PCNI.
PERL which operates under the auspices of the DFID has a mandate to strengthening governance, increase capacity for execution, and support Monitoring & Evaluation. Regarding the North-East, PERL seeks to support the transition from humanitarian assistance to recovery, strengthen coordination, address the strategic interests of the North-East region and enhance institutional capacity.
It also seeks to establish links between humanitarian and development programmes for sustainability, promote accountability and transparency of recovery efforts through information flows among stakeholders, formalize the strategy for transiting from recovery to stronger governance institutions
The UNOCHA Country Representative solicited PCNI’s participation in a series of impeding workshops being organized in the North-East to formulate the 2018 Humanitarian Response Plan in Nigeria.
The consensus of the forum is that interventions in the North-East must adopt a more holistic approach that embraces both immediate humanitarian assistance as well as developmental programmes focused on the region’s sustainable recovery.
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