By Ochiaka Ugwu
The National Coordinator of National Counter Terrorism Centre, Office of the National Security Adviser, Maj-Gen. Adamu Garba Laka has called for more stakeholders’ collaboration by way of bringing their expertise and increase their funding to further sharpen strategies and expand scope for more impactful Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (PCVE).
Gen. Laka who made this known in Abuja Wednesday while delivering his opening remarks at the global community engagement resilience fund country needs assessment event noted that Global Community Engagement Resilience Fund (GCERF) has been a formidable partner that has funded evidence based Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (PCVE) projects to build resilience against Violent Extremism in a bid to ensure safer communities in Nigeria.
Continuing, Laka said the Country Need Assessment was a continuation of this gesture and to seemingly guide project needs and implementations to meet the dynamics/peculiarity challenges of each zone in the country.
He informed that the meeting would be characterised by reviews of previous finding, assessment of on-going initiatives, potential future investment on PCVE and other relevant issues.
Laka reiterated FGN’s stance on Counter Terrorism through policies and strategies aimed at addressing root causes of Violent Extremism from bottom up as prioritized in the Policy Framework and Nation Action Plans for PCVE (PF NAP for PCVE) and the enactment of the TPPA 2022, the signing of the handover protocol on the handling of children associated with armed conflict in the country/ LCB region, the development of the Nigeria Call for Action, among others.
Also speaking, Country Manager of Global Community Engagement Resilience Fund (GCERF) based in Geneva, Mr. Mickael Amar said he came to participate in the engagement resilience fund country needs assessment to gain more insight on how best they can reposition their strategy for preventing violent extremism.
