BUILDING RESILIENCE: CISLAC & OSF HOST COMMUNITY SECURITY ARCHITECTURE DIALOGUES.

 By Araba, Olawale Enifenilanfe:

The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), in partnership with the Open Society Foundation (OSF), convened the second phase of Community Security Architecture Dialogues on Early Warning and Early Response at Amber Residence, 16 Esugbayi St, Ikeja GRA, Lagos on Wednesday, October 16th, 2024 for the promotion of inclusive participation in Community Security Architecture system and dialogues, to harness communal support for efficient functionality of Early Warning and Early Response structure.

The objective was to address the challenges impeding the development of community resilience against threats in various southwest communities.

The second phase of the event aimed to engage participants in a collaborative effort to devise solutions to these challenges, “Acknowledging that as communities grow, the associated risks also increase“.

The dialogue focused on presenting a charter of demands to think tanks, outlining the opportunities, challenges, and the way forward for each individual community.

Participants were able to identify opportunities, confront challenges, and propose viable pathways for progress, contributing to the overarching goal of enhancing community resilience.

The Traditional Rulers, Community Observers, members of the Community Response Networks, Security Actors, Civil Society and Local Government officials, analyse early warning information and coordinate response efforts.

There was an “Opening Remark” from the Executive Director of CISLAC, Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani). The Dialogue had some technical sessions with Presentations, Titled: CSAD– A Critical Reflection from Previous Engagement and Building Community Resilience against Threats: The Prospects, challenges and Way Forward. It was attended by about 30 participants.

After brainstorming exhaustively on various thematic issues, the following observations and recommendations were made:

OBSERVATIONS:

1. As disasters and other threats become increasingly common, especially those occasioned by climate change, increasing globalization, and urbanization, hence, building resilience has become imperative to enhance communities’ adaptation and coping capacity in the face of difficulty and adversity.
2. While the recently promulgated financial autonomy for Local Governments provides the enabling opportunity for an enhanced Community Security Architecture system, institutionalising proactive transparent and accountability mechanisms has become imperative for impactful implementation.
3. Porous international borders with unmanned entries and exits enabling infiltration of undocumented nationals pose a significant challenge to resilience building against threats at all levels.
4. Unregulated movements of locally-fabricated weapons coupled with poorly controlled ammunition, exacerbate community susceptibility to threats while hampering their coping capacity.
5. Lack of synergy and duplicated institutions with overlapping mandates hinder adequate resource allocation and capacity to facilitate rapid response to reported threats.
6. Poor accountability for the implementation of the Security Vote constitutes a major barrier to anticipated efforts to bridge the gaps in resource allocation to strengthen the Early Warning/Early Response system at sub-national levels.
7. Lack of trust between community and response institution, inadequate intra-community cooperation on communal rules and regulations as well as systemic bribery and corruption at institutional levels are major impediments to proactive and inclusive dialogues at raising public consciousness and sensitivity against threats.
8. The advent of social media with growing misinformation and unverifiable facts, especially on social media platforms poses significant threats to proactive efforts at building synergy and cooperation between community and response institutions.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
The participants recommended as following:- Monsuroh Abdulsemiu and
Independent journalist.

A proposed method to advance resilience within the community, focusing on Lagos State, involves enhancing the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA), as recommended by the concerned parties. This enhancement is anticipated to promote accountability, transparency, and security in the identification process of Lagos State residents.

Building community resilience through social connectedness and disaster preparedness to promote various systems that contribute to the community’s overall health.

Harmonise for adequate regulation, the existing self-regulated public structures operating at all levels, to prevent tension-propelled operational duplicity for enhanced synergy, transparency, accountability and coordination in operational activities.

Strengthening the capacity of community management and securing communal resolution/buy-in to promote efficient operationalisation of the Community Security Architecture system.

Creating a Community-based Peace Initiative to uphold monthly security dialogue on threat signals, while eliciting timely response.

Enhancing community sensitisation on EWER with training and retraining programmes for response institutions to build synergy in reporting and response to threats.

Strengthening operational mandate and capacity of existing centralised databases like LASRRA to ensure demographic accountability for adequate planning and enhanced institutional response capability to threats.

Promoting inclusive participation in Community Security Architecture system and dialogues, to harness communal support for efficient functionality of Early Warning and Early Response structure.

For further details, please refer to the CISLAC website at https://cislac.org/press-release/.

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