Nigeria International NGOs Forum (NIF) has provided 267 humanitarian interventions across 23 states of the federation.
Ms Camilla Corradin, the Director, NIF, made this known while briefing newsmen on the sidelines of an event tagged “INGOs in Action: Partnership and Collaboration, in Abuja.
She said that the forum which presently has 55 members, remains committed to support humanitarian responses across the country.
She said that the focus of the INGOs which used to be on the North-Eastern part of the country, had of recent, extended its support to North-Western part of the country.
Corradin said that the projects focused on contributing to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals in the country.
Also speaking, Mr Charles Usie, Country Director of PLAN International Nigeria, said International NGOs came together officially around 2014 to provide life-saving assistance to people in need of aid, among others.
He said that since its inception, more than 40 million people across Nigeria had benefitted from its humanitarian projects, which was done in partnership with the state and federal government.
“We work in conjunction with the government to strengthen the government and enable them to do more.
“We don’t work to take over or duplicate what they do, we actually work to amplify the work of government in all the states we work with.
“That is why this meeting is important as we have government officials from almost all the states we work with in the Northern part of the country,” he said.
Mr Suleiman Sani, Deputy Chief of Party of the Mercy Corps Nigeria, said collaboration and partnership with the relevant authorities had contributed to the success of its activities over the years.
He said that the forum had so far carried out several interventions across education, youth empowerment, girl-child, health, humanitarian interventions, among others.
“Collaboration and partnership with the government is key, as we try to provide assistance to the most vulnerable communities across Nigeria.
“This means that we recognize the existing structures of government and we adapt and work through those existing policies and systems to complement what government is primarily there to do for the people.
“In spite working in an environment with all sorts of impediment such as insecurity among others challenges, we had continued to work with the federal, states and local governments to bring solution to the problems,” he said.
Also speaking, Mr Fredenburg Dane, Deputy Country Representative, Programmes, Catholic Relief Services, added that localization and community engagement were done to identify the needs of the people and co-create solutions to those needs.
“We work in different ways and with different mandates as International NGOs, but in all, we work with communities to make sure that they own, participate and have a voice in our projects.
“From design of the projects, we sit together with communities and we essentially design interventions that at the end of the day meet their needs.
“We don’t have a project that is written in a vacuum, we have a dialogue and assess what the needs are and in that way, they can fully own it.
“This is to ensure that local actors are increasingly taking up the efforts on these projects,” he said.
For his part, Mr Enkas Chau, Head of Mission, INTERSOS Nigeria, explained that the International NGOs had to align with the communities’ priorities to ensure accountability and transparency in the projects.
“A lot of INGOs are already collecting different surveys to collect the views and issues from the community members.
“An example is the running of the women and girls safe space, where women and girls can freely go there to share what their concerns are, particularly about gender-based violence, about issues that women are mostly affected with among others.
“We then collect their views, we then provide counseling, psycho-social support and livelihood support to them,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that participants deliberated on the pivotal role of partnerships in driving sustainable change for communities affected by crisis across the country.
Source: News Agency of Nigeria