Mr Tswah Bakut, the Director-General, Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution(IPCR) says government should start appropriating funds for peace building efforts in annual budgets, to cater for conflict resolution.Bakut, made the call at a stakeholders consultative forum in Jos on Thursday on mediation and dialogue to promote farmer-herder relationship for food security in Nigeria.He said that the institute has embarked on several intervention programmes towards rebuilding peaceful relations in conflict areas through empirical researches to further understand the roots of violent conflicts that have prevailed in the six geo-political zones of the country.
The director-general said peace-building efforts before and after conflicts needed appropriation for sustainable development.”Peace building agencies should sensitise, dialoguing and hold stakeholders’ meeting to find out how the problems can be resolved.“
We organise consultative engagements with stakeholders that will enable us understand what they are saying and also look at it with the content of our research to enable us advice the government.”Through this, conflicts have been drastically reduced.
Conflicts bring shortage in food supply and hardship to our people and affect the economy adversely,” he said.The IPCR boss said that conflict resolution could be capital intensive but in the long-run would improve the economy.He added that if the government could channel adequate funds to peace building agencies, it would make a huge difference in resolving the farmer – herder conflicts.(NAN)
