UN OCHA to strengthen local CSOs to improve humanitarian response in North-East
NAN-H-77
Response
By Lizzy Okoji
Abuja, Feb. 23, 2018 (NAN) The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says it is placing a high priority on strengthening the capacities of local Civil Societies to improve humanitarian response in North-East, Nigeria.
Ms Alta Bell Humanitarian Financing Advisor, OCHA Nigeria made this known on Friday in Abuja during a workshop organised by the Network of Civil Society Organisations (CSos) operating in the Lake Chad region.
Bells said that OCHA acknowledges the important roles local Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), CSO and Community Based
Organisations (CBOs) play in raising their voices to the humanitarian course to make the best impact.
She said that since the world humanitarian summit in 2017, OCHA have made more progress in working together with local partners and working to ensure very strong commitments was really critical.
“Within OCHA and the Nigerian Community, we have placed a high priority on local partnership and strengthening local partnership.
“Sometimes it seem like a slow process but I have witnessed it happened in other countries and seen it strengthened over time and from what I am hearing today, we are celebrating and acknowledging the progress made in one year.
“We also recognise the need for strengthening our partnership with local NGOs and civil societies which would also involve capacity building.
“In the Nigeria Humanitarian Response Plan, we are trying to increase the numbers of local partners, we are at twelve now which is a good achievement for the first year.
“We are also working hard to make sure that we can bring in more partners.
“We are looking at another twelve that have gone through the eligibility process and we are hoping again to double those numbers,’’ Bell said.
Bell commended the network of CSOs for the achievements made just one after the Oslo humanitarian conference and for raising their voices which really helped to kick start the massive scale up in terms of response.
According to Bells, in 2017, a humanitarian response plan was done in partnership with OCHA and its partners of a need overview of all the North East States.
She said that as a result, they came up with a plan to respond to the very significant needs, which amounted to 1.05 billion which is extremely large requirement.
She explained that through conferences like Oslo and other awareness, the actual response in terms of contributions were extremely generous with more than 740 million dollars was raised to respond to needs.
“In 2017 we targeted 6.9 million people but we were able to assist 5.1 million people together with all our local partners, which is also an impressive achievement.
“This could not have been done or made possible without the support of local partners.
“ I am also happy that OCHA has had some important role on facilitating the coordination in the various countries.
“My understanding is that OCHA has also played a key role in each of the countries and in terms of working with all of the networks.
“We also acknowledge the important roles that these networks play as an entry point to ensure that local voices are heard.
“In this year 2018, we are actually looking at another 1.05 billion that is going to be required to respond.
“In other to respond well, we need to maintain the momentum that was achieved last year,’’ Bell said.
Bell said that OCHA was also working closely with our development partners and the World Bank in other to move towards more stabilisation in the different areas where they have been high levels of conflict. (NAN)
LIZ/AFA
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Edited by Felix Ajide