FG plans recovery, peace programme for North East

The Federal Government will soon launch what it called Recovery and Peace Building Assessment for the North Eastern part of the country.

The programme which would be implemented in conjunction with the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations is in furtherance of government’s efforts aimed at rebuilding and rehabilitating the North East which had been the hotbed of the terrorism activities of the Boko Haram sect.

The Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, disclosed the plan in a statement made available to journalists on Monday.

Akande did not however disclose when the programme would be launched.

He however said the initiative would be conducted within the framework of the Joint EU-UN-WB Declaration on international crisis recovery cooperation with the North-East States of Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Gombe, Taraba and Bauchi.

He said, “The RPBA will essentially build upon existing initiatives and body of work on the North East produced at the Federal and State levels, including the Presidential Initiative for the North East and the North East States Transformation Strategy.

“These assessment efforts will provide a credible framework for coordinated and coherent support from humanitarian and development partners to complement series of Federal Government efforts towards restoring normalcy to these affected states.

“It is will also form the basis for planning a broad-based public sector recovery program for the NE, as well as leverage, synchronise and inform the financing initiatives and projects of Nigeria’s development partners, civil society organisations, private sector groups and organisations.”

Akande added that the assessment is expected to strengthen local capacity, enable direct participation and come up with results that would be useful in developing a plan to meet the needs of the states.

Such a plan, he said, would also appropriately and adequately cater for the IDPs, the rebuilding and reconstruction programmes of their respective states.

President Mohammadu Buhari had during his visit to the United States in July, 2015 met with the World Bank President, Jim Yong Kim and representatives of other donor agencies where he secured the commitment of the bank in supporting Federal Government’s efforts in the North-East.

This high-level collaboration between the government and donor partners culminated in the setting up of the RPBA.