Nigeria Evaluations
 | Final Evaluation – Advancing Religious Tolerance (ART. 38) Project in Nigeria – December 2020The Nigerian Government and the Shi’ite group have been engaged in violent confrontations since the arrest and detaining of the IMN leader Sheik Ibraheem El-Zakzaky and his wife in 2015 despite a high court order in 2016 granting his release. Tensions increased with reports of the Shi’ite leader’s worsening health related to several gun injuries and the loss of an eye. IMN and several human rights organizations held several protests demanding his release for medical care, which was eventually granted in August 2019. Search through the ART project designed activities to address interreligious violence and weak mechanisms for seeking justice in response to religious freedom violations in Northern Nigeria which have led to a climate of fear between different religious and ethnic groups and a lack of trust in federal and state governments. The overall goal of the project is to advance the protection of religious freedom and tolerance among religious communities that reduces vigilante justice tied to blasphemy and apostasy laws in Nigeria. |
| Baseline Report of “UNITED IN SECURITY: A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO CIVILIAN PROTECTION IN NIGERIA” Project In Adamawa and Benue States, Nigeria – June 2022According to a report by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), between 2021 and April 2022, Adamawa State recorded 247 human rights violation cases. The abuses reported include child abuse, rape, domestic violence, and unnatural causes. The Commission said it has resolved 75% of the cases, while 25% are pending. It also revealed that some of the cases have been referred to other institutions and organizations, such as the Police, the Ministry of Justice, the Nigerian Army, and the Civil Defence Corps. Search seeks to promote collaborative multi-stakeholder engagement and advocacy processes to reduce human rights abuse by police forces in Benue and Adamawa States. This integrated intervention design is to ensure that stakeholders and the community from a broad social demographic spectrum-particularly the average man in the community, widely considered to be the most vulnerable to human rights abuses and killings in Adamawa and Benue states are central to the project interventions. The study revealed that strengthening human rights actors and stakeholders will require a broadened and elevated human rights architecture that takes into consideration the views and engages the active participation of all stakeholders within the Human rights space. A steady coalition between the government, communities, and CSOs to harmonize political and economic rights within democratic institutions will also be necessary. In the meantime, government agencies, security, and nongovernmental organizations must play a larger role from the bottom up. Search’s project should address the low confidence and trust the community has in the security agencies and the security architecture of the state, which is seen to be amongst the most important factors driving human rights abuses and other forms of violence in the state. |
| Final Evaluation: SUPPORTING THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC REINTEGRATION OF CHILDREN ASSOCIATED WITH ARMED FORCES AND ARMED GROUPS INCLUDING THE CIVILIAN JOINT TASK FORCE (CJTF) IN NORTHEAST NIGERIAFinal Evaluation | Supporting the Socio-Economic Reintegration of Children Associated with Armed Forces and Armed Groups including the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) in Northeast Nigeria Project. UNICEF – 1st November 2019 to 31st May 2021. The use of children as soldiers has had significant emotional, psychological, and physical challenges for the children that have been involved in the conflict. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), while living among armed actors, children experience unconscionable forms of violence. They may be required to participate in harrowing training or initiation ceremonies, to undergo hazardous labour or to engage in combat – with great risk of death, chronic injury, and disability. They may also witness, suffer, or be forced to take part in torture and killings. Girls, especially, can be subjected to gender-based violence. Amid the ongoing conflict, UNICEF and its partners including Search for Common Ground have been working on identifying and supporting the release and reintegration of children from armed groups. Thus, this report is based on one of the projects of UNICEF and its partners to support the release and reintegration of children associated with armed groups in Borno State. The use of an integrated community-based approach is a good practice that promotes local ownership, buy-in and leadership of reintegration programmes. The use of this practice has played a critical role in ensuring its success. It is important for the model alongside the common-ground approach to always be embedded in the projects and programmes of Search. The project’s quarterly M&E Reflection meetings is a good practice that helps the project to critically reflect on the progress made and the challenges that should be addressed. Such meetings provide a platform for corrective measures to be adopted to address challenges immediately after they are identified. Search should continue the use of such an approach to programming as it is effective and produces the desired results. |
| Final Evaluation – Sharing the Green Grass; Cultivating a Locally Led Peace Architecture in the Niger DeltaSharing the Green Grass; Cultivating a Locally Led Peace Architecture in the Niger Delta – Nigeria. USAID. January 2019 to July, 2021. Key stakeholders revealed that the project adopted a participatory, inclusive, and multi-stakeholder approach in implementing the activities outlined for the project. Key stakeholders; Men, Women, Youth, other marginalised groups, CSOs, Government parastatals and ministries, AFAN and MACBAN were integrated in the programming. Media, community dialogues and capacity building were used to achieve the project’s goal and objectives. Findings also revealed a significant reduction in the number of violent conflicts between and among community members. 67 percent of the respondents state that there is a reduction in the number of violent conflicts reported since the beginning of the project. |
| Final Evaluation of The Deepening Peace in the Niger-Delta ProgramThe “Deepening the Peace in the Niger Delta” Project is funded by the German Cooperation, to support a locally led peace architecture that is inclusive, at all levels of society. The project is in its second phase of implementation (October 2019 – December 2020), aiming to scale up impact and build on the positive results yielded from successful implementation of the project’s pilot phase (November 2018 – September 2019). In the first phase of the project, including a period of no cost extension (Jun – Sep 2019), the project focused on Bayelsa, Delta, and Rivers states, directly benefiting communities in eight (8) Local Government Areas (LGAs) i.e. Rivers State: Okrika, Gokana, and Port Harcourt LGAs, Bayelsa State: Southern Ijaw and Kolokuma/Opokuma LGAs, and Delta State: Warri North, Warri South-West, Isoko South LGAs. This project recognizes that if members of communities are empowered with non-violence means of resolving conflicts and embrace dialogues, and thus develop locally-owned and sustained mechanisms for conflict prevention and dispute resolution, the risk of intergroup violence will be reduced and norms and institutions favorable towards peace and reconciliation will be reinforced. |
| The WAY Forward for Peace: Women and Youth Unite for Peace and Violence Prevention in Bayelsa State Final Evaluation Report – November 2020The report presents the findings from the evaluation of the WAY Forward for Peace: Women and Youth Unite for Peace and Violence Prevention in Bayelsa State project funded by the United States Department of State’s Bureau for Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO). The project which seeks primarily to strengthen community resilience to violence during the pre- and post-election period in high-risk areas of Bayelsa State, by accomplishing two specific objectives namely: (i) To foster youth- and women-led platforms for violence prevention during the pre- and post-election period; and (ii) To build community resilience to violence, including cult violence, for the pre- and post-election periods and beyond. |
| Final Evaluation – Early Warning Early Response Mechanisms in Northern Nigeria – October 2019From 2015 to 2019, Search for Common Ground (Search) implemented a project entitled “Early Warning / Early Response Mechanisms in Northern Nigeria,” funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL). The overall goal of the project was to expand and strengthen early warning and early response (EW/ER) processes to enhance community and state actors’ ability to protect citizens through convening and empowering diverse community leaders to engage in dialogue processes at the local and state levels. The evaluation highlights how security providers expressed commitment to conflict early warning and early response, including greater communication and coordination among actors from local and state governments to civil society to traditional leaders and faith communities. It also highlights increased proactive efforts to address conflict dynamics, and greater capacity for conflict resolution and mitigation among all of these stakeholders. Community perceptions were positively different in target communities, corroborated by information of stakeholders regarding decreased violence, increased confidence in local security mechanisms, increased reporting of conflicts and potential conflicts, and improved conflict resolution. Finally, stakeholders identified that levels of conflict are down considerably. |