Improving the Prospects for Peace in Nigeria: Spotlight on Stabilization

This report presents exploratory research into the potential of the World Food Programme’s (WFP) crisis response in Nigeria to contribute to a reduction in direct violence, enhance basic physical security and increase stability.

The findings are based on a desk review of programme documents, in-depth interviews with various stakeholders and project site visits by locally-based researchers across the three states in north-east Nigeria: Borno, Adamawa and Yobe. Additionally, relevant questions were added to the WFP Food Security Outcome Monitoring (FSOM) survey with intended beneficiaries. The findings highlight that WFP programming could contribute to enhancing stability in north-east Nigeria if WFP were to intentionally seek to do so. This report therefore makes eight recommendations.

This report is the first of a series of three. The series is part of phase II of the SIPRI–WFP knowledge partnership and investigates WFP's contributions to improving the prospects for peace in Nigeria. The Nigeria case study research focuses on three thematic areas: stabilization, cash-based transfers (CBTs) and measurement.