Connecting and Innovating to Advance Peace-Centred Development Pathways

Join us in-person and online to innovate and advance pathways towards peace-centred development in fragile and conflict-affected contexts
About this Event

The Lake Chad Region Now and Next: Connecting and Innovating to Advance Pathways towards Peace-Centred Development

A 2-Day Strategic Dialogue leading into the 5th Lake Chad Basin Governors’ Forum

27 - 28 January 2025

Maiduguri, Nigeria and Online via Zoom

The Lake Chad region faces complex, interlinked poverty, violence and ecological challenges. Despite efforts to address these challenges, progress has been slow-paced. In response, the UK Research and Innovation funded Prosperity and Peace Pathways Project led by Dr Uche Okpara (University of Greenwich, London) launched the Transboundary Citizen Lab (TCL) Mechanism in 2022. This innovative mechanism connects science, society and the state to co-create locally valid and locally owned prosperity and peace pathways that balance socioeconomic and environmental priorities. The TCL provides tools to help guide actions towards peace-centred development and socially-just futures in the region.

To publicly communicate key results and new scientific insights emerging from the TCL and advance strategic dialogue and idea sharing amongst diverse stakeholders, the Prosperity and Peace Pathways Project is hosting a 2-day pre-forum event on 27-28 January 2025, leading into the 5th Lake Chad Basin Governors Forum. This will be hosted in collaboration with the Centre for Peace, Diplomatic and Development Studies at the University of Maiduguri, the World Bank Centre for Dryland Agriculture at Bayero University Kano, and Sustainability Pathways for Africa, Port Harcourt.

The proposed 2-day pre-forum event will cover four thematic areas: (i) observatory for conflict and environmental incidents; (ii) Lake Chad conflict data ecosystem framework; (iii) innovative approaches for harmonising diverse conflict intervention strategies; and (iv) pathways towards prosperity and peace in the Lake Chad region.

Concerning the first thematic area, the Prosperity and Peace Pathways Project team is pioneering an observatory which tracks, monitors, documents and evaluates conflicts and environmental incidents across the Lake Chad region. So far, the project team has generated 31 factsheets that reveal conflict trends and other social, food, and environmental changes in the region and is in the process of developing an open-access portal that will enable resources from the observatory to be shared globally. The idea of an observatory emerged following concerns to address critical information gaps surrounding complex conflict dynamics and ecological transitions in the Lake Chad region. As decision-makers and development actors face increasingly diverse and time-sensitive responsibilities to deliver peace-centred development decisions and programmes in quick succession, there is a growing demand for high-quality, easily accessible data and evidence. The project team aims to use the observatory to provide timely and comprehensive data to support rapid and informed decision-making for peace-centred development initiatives in the region. As such, during the pre-forum event, the team will present key knowledge products from the observatory initiative, highlighting emerging trends and ways the observatory can better serve the Lake Chad region.

Relatedly - concerning the second thematic area - there is greater awareness amongst conflict and peace scholars that the growth in modern web-based technologies, including social media communication and Artificial Intelligence infrastructures, is making it easier for conflict data producers and users (plus other stakeholders) to access more information about conflict than ever before. There is also heightened awareness that the glut of conflict data has continued to raise questions about quality, reliability, ethical compliance, inter-operability and responsible data use. At the same time, the growth in conflict data platforms has raised concerns about the unidirectional nature of models for capturing, verifying, integrating, storing, analysing, publishing, trading and using conflict data. Data producers and providers seldom engage in data sharing and collaboration with data users and data stewards. Without collaboration – e.g., across the entire lifecycle of conflict data from creation or acquisition to processing and transformation – it can be difficult to communicate errors, share corrections, integrate data, and enhance quality, security and responsible data use. Realising the absence, to date, of a robust public conversation on the notion of a ‘Lake Chad Conflict Data Ecosystem Framework’, the Prosperity and Peace Pathways team will, during the pre-forum, share results from an ongoing work on conflict data ecosystem. The goal is to kickstart a regional conversation on this subject in the context of increasing conflict tipping risks and the open data movement, demonstrating what a conflict data ecosystem framework looks like and the potential benefits of such a framework for the Lake Chad region.

While a lot of effort is ongoing across the Lake Chad region to tackle fragility, conflict and violence, a significant gap exists regarding how to practically harmonise different conflict intervention strategies to bolster a more holistic pathway to tackling conflict and building lasting peace. This is particularly in relation to strategies targeting conflict prevention, mitigation, resolution, management and transformation (CPMRMT). Currently, there is an emerging Lake Chad region peacebuilding ecosystem, yet there is insufficient understanding of how certain contextual factors, such as those within the political economy, influence the effectiveness of different combinations of CPMRMT strategies in this ecosystem. There is also a lack of exploration into the role of timing and sequencing in the application of CPMRMT strategies. In order words, research on the synergies and trade-offs between different CPMRMT strategies - especially when applied simultaneously or sequentially - remain limited. Focusing on the third thematic area, the project team will present new findings from a newly commissioned CPMRMT research. Recommendations on ways to harmonise different conflict intervention strategies within the Lake Chad peacebuilding ecosystem will be shared and submitted to the Lake Chad Governors’ Forum which, if implemented, could result in a notable reduction in conflict impacts.

The fourth thematic area is about pathways towards prosperity and peace in the Lake Chad region. Through the TCL mechanism, local stakeholder perspectives and voices have shaped and helped co-create three sets of prosperity-peace pathways, covering ‘human rights,’ ‘human and regional security,’ and ‘linked natural resources, livelihoods, and food security,’ with seven more expected before July 2025. Pathways reflect a multidimensional construct with pillars such as leadership values and citizen agency, levers of change such as adherence to the rule of law, political economy considerations such as institutional incentives, and desired outcomes including access to decent livelihoods and social justice. Pathways can serve as useful roadmaps for transitioning societies from deprivation and instability towards collective well-being and social cohesion. Evaluations using indicators assessing pathway relevance revealed that co-created pathways demonstrate key attributes such as context specificity, multidimensionality, adaptability, local validity, and local ownership. During the pre-forum event, the project team will present the innovation underpinning the TCL mechanism as well as the Lake Chad region prosperity-peace pathway frameworks that have been co-created to date.

Taken together, new insights from the above four thematic areas will raise awareness amongst security, peacebuilding, climate change and development actors, enabling them to identify, understand, and contribute to interventions targeting stabilisation, recovery and resilience in the Lake Chad region. Recommendations from this engagement will support regional peace and development policies, facilitating more integrated, context-specific approaches to addressing complex regional challenges.

Date: 27 - 28 January 2025

Time: 8.30 - 17.00 each day (Nigeria time)

Location: In-person in Maiduguri, Nigeria and Online

Email contact: [email protected]

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