USAID begins conflict mitigation training for grassroots stakeholders in Gombe
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through its state accountability, transparency, and effectiveness (State2State) activity on Tuesday commenced a 3-day training for grassroots community leaders in Gombe State.
The stakeholders comprised traditional, community, religious leaders, youth and women groups as well as the physically-challenged persons.
The 3-day training being held in Gombe, and aimed at mitigating conflicts in communities, is expected to end on Thursday.
Mr Danjuma Mohammed, the conflict specialist at USAID State2state activity, said the training was to improve the capacity of community leaders and establish a functional early warning system in all communities.
Mohammed said USAID was trying to foster workable collaborative solution to resolving conflicts in Gombe communities.
He said the training had become imperartive because during election year, the polity was always heightened with issues that could threaten peace.
“We are here to strengthen the capacity of traditional leaders and other critical stakeholders in mitigating conflicts in their communities.
“And if we don’t make deliberate efforts to ensure that we curb cases of hate speech, intolerance and some pockets of economic deprivation conflict, we may not get it right in 2023.
“There are a lot of aggrieved people in the society and we need to pin down their grievances and engage them more,” he said.
The conflict specialist stated that he was optimistic that at the end of the training, “we will be able to establish a functional system that will monitor conflicts and report same to curb crisis.”
Dr Eunice Akpala-Okoroafor, the acting Team Lead, State2state Activity, Gombe State, said the training would serve as a platform to share ideas towards finding ways of addressing conflict and maintaining peace.
She said the importance of peace to governance and national development were numerous, hence the engagement to ensure that issues that could threaten peace in communities were nipped in the bud.
The acting team lead said with the influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs) into the state and the commencement of political activities ahead of 2023 elections, there was the need for such engagement.
She stated that the training would help stakeholders acquire skills and knowledge on identifying early warning signs of conflict and how to mitigate it.
The Bala Waja of Waja Chiefdom, Alhaji Danjuma Mohammed, said his chiefdom recently experienced conflict, which led to loss of lives and property that may take time to recover.
While calling for concerted efforts by all stakeholders towards ensuring peaceful coexistence, Mohammed charged communities to shun all forms of conflicts and violence that could threaten the development of Gombe state.
The royal father further called on the people and particularly the youth to embrace dialogue as a tool to resolving conflicts rather than resorting to violence.
