Civil Society Organisations implementing the MoCCSA (Mobilising CSOs and Citizens for Social Accountability) project implemented by Green Concern for Development (GREENCODE) in partnership with Nigeria Situation Room with support from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), has called on the government of Cross River State to intensify actions towards effective Peacebuilding approaches to curb the numerous communal crisis plaguing the state NEGROIDHAVEN can report.
Speaking through a policy document launched at the end of the project, Partners for Peace in the Niger Delta, a leading Peacebuilding and Conflict Management Network in the state informed that the state has lost it’s once peaceful nature to pockets of crisis and conflicts across the state leading to loss of over 700 lives and properties worth billions of Naira due to communal crisis in 4 years. It also added that over 10,000 school children have been out of school and displaced as a result of communal crisis.
Leading the call for action, P4P urges government to ensure the implementation of outstanding white papers and recommendations of panels of inquiry in all pending communal crises across the state.
Presenting the Policy Brief at the closeout meeting of the projects where four other policy briefs on different sectors of the society were also presented, Comrade Edem Edem, National Coordinator of Green Concern for Development GREENCODE, informed that the project aimed at empowering civil society organizations (CSOs) and citizens to actively engage in governance and hold the government accountable. Through advocacy visits and capacity-building initiatives, adding that the project focused on promoting social accountability by equipping CSOs with advocacy skills and tools to facilitate citizen participation in policy discussions and ensure government responsiveness to the needs of grassroots communities.
Edem noted that the project was closing with the launch of the 2023 4th quarter budget performance report, a Citizen’s Budget (a simplified version of the 2024 budget, and five policy briefs touching on Water and Sanitation, Waste Management and Environment, Peace Building and Conflict Management, Fiscal Accountability and Open Government, Forest Degradation and Illegal Mining. Adding that these documents which will be distributed to relevant stakeholders and the public in general is to both trigger the citizens to hold government accountable and trigger actions from government to solve citizens problems.
These documents according to Edem, can be downloaded from the organisation’s website at www.greencodeng.org.
Through collaborative efforts and proactive measures, Partners for Peace believe that peace and reconciliation can be achieved, paving the way for a peaceful and prosperous future for all citizens of Cross River State.
