Peace practitioners in Plateau State have been urged to incorporate the Do No Harm and Conflict Sensitivity guidance into their programme implementation plans to enable them understand dynamics of relationships between and among various stakeholders in their locations and site of operations.
This was made known in Jos, Plateau State capital by the Chief of Party, Peace Action for Rapid Nigerian Early Response, PARTNER Project, Mr. Danjuma Dawop at the end of a 3-day Do No Harm/Conflict Sensitivity Mainstreaming Workshop for Civil Society Organisations, CSOs working in conflict transformation and peacebuilding spectrum in Plateau State.
The PARTNER Project is a USAID supported project led by Mercy Corps and other consortium partners: Plateau Peace Building Agency, PPBA; West Africa Network for Peace, WANEP; and the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, IPCR.
According to Dawop, the training was designed to help CSOs “apply the DNH lens to participants’ selection; understand dynamics of relationships between and among various participants; selection of venues/sites for activities and timing, etc.”
He added that the training also built “the capacity of the CSOs so that they can replicate/ step down the DNH training for others in their organizations and to support community-based structures in PARTNER activity areas of intervention to apply the DNH framework”.
“It was also to utilize the DNH framework as a tool to analyze the impact of their activities on the conflict situation in their areas of operations, and how they can minimize the harm they may inadvertently be causing, as well as, create a DNH strategy that outlines key measures to not only reduce potential risks to conflict from their programming but, also identify proactive ways to strengthen connections”.
“In addition, the workshop afforded participants an avenue for CSOs to develop strategies for avoiding exacerbating tensions to that of promoting positive relations between conflicting groups while addressing drivers of conflict”, Dawop added.
On their part, some participants Mr. Gyang Thomas of Pastoral Resolve and Mr. Aminu Shuaib, Team Lead, Mediation and Dialogue Unit of Plateau Peace Building Agency, PPBA expressed optimism that the training which exposed participants to in-depth principles of DNH and conflict sensitivity would help the CSOs to avoid pitfalls that could lead to disastrous outcome during interventions.
They both promised to step down the training in their various organisations to ensure that ongoing peace interventions in communities across Plateau State benefit from it.