Nigeria Northeast Connection: Building Community Resilience to Violent Extremism and Conflict in Northeast Nigeria

The Activity will develop local capacity to respond to emerging threats and vulnerabilities, targeting communities not yet under the control of violent extremist organizations (VEOs). By mitigating grievances that make communities vulnerable to violent extremism, building social cohesion within and across communities, and responding to emergent risks from VEOs and conflict, Northeast Connection will enhance community resilience to VE infiltration and conflict. The Activity will facilitate partnerships between diverse local actors, enhancing inter- and intra-community networks, to address unresolved grievances, governance weaknesses, social divisions, marginalization, and environmental shocks. Interventions will identify and implement at the ward level within each target local government area (LGA). Northeast Connection will work in 15 LGAs throughout Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe states over the life of the project, targeting seven LGAs in Year 1 and ramping up programming to the full 15 LGAs by Year 2. The Activity has made significant progress in its first quarter, including recruiting qualified staff, establishing finance, security, procurement, and communications processes and procedures, and launching technical activities. The program's dedication to a successful startup during its first quarter will ensure implementation throughout the remainder of the program is seamless and results in high-quality, impactful activities. The Northeast Connection team successfully recruited and onboarded 12 employees, including three Key Personnel: Chief of Party, Deputy Chief of Party, and Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Manager. The program team worked closely with Creative's headquarters (HQ) Human Resources (HR) Department to develop a thorough onboarding program that ensures all employees are trained on policies and procedures for various departments, including operations, HR (ethics, compliance, etc.), finance, and procurement. However, the security situation in Borno deteriorated during the first few months of the project, and Northeast Connection modified its operational footprint accordingly, moving the main office from Maiduguri, Borno state to Yola, Adamawa state, to facilitate safe access to target LGAs in southern Borno. The Activity will focus on two complementary components: Conflict mitigation, social cohesion, and countering violent extremism (CVE) programming, and Conflict and violent extremism research, analysis, and coordination. To achieve Northeast Connection's first objective of enhanced community resilience to VE infiltration and conflict, the Activity will facilitate partnerships between diverse local actors, enhancing inter- and intra-community networks, to address unresolved grievances, governance weaknesses, social divisions, marginalization, and environmental shocks. Northeast Connection will work closely with local actors from the start of the Activity to incorporate buy-in, political will, and sustainability. Activities will reinforce local ownership through empowering local actors to have greater agency in the decisions affecting their lives and will shift from intensive to targeted support based on performance and iterative capacity assessments. The Activity will target populations in LGAs that experience ethnic intolerance, community tensions, systemic discrimination, political exclusion, shrinking civic space, limited opportunities for civic participation, economic exclusion of vulnerable groups, and environmental shocks impacting communities' livelihoods. The Activity will use a range of indicators to measure progress, including standard indicators such as baseline FY, annual target, Q1 FY21, Q2 FY21, Q3 FY21, Q4 FY21, and annual performance achieved to the end of the reporting period. The Northeast Connection Activity Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning Plan has not been approved as of the end of FY21 Q2, but this table will be completed in Q3.