The Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND) has inducted 90 youths into its Niger Delta Peace Champions Program to join PIND’s network of peace actors in peacebuilding, conflict Early Warning, and Early Response (EWER), and carrying out interventions where they live and work in the region.

In a release, the organization working to address socio-economic issues in the Niger Delta said the inductees included 51 men, 39 women, and five people living with disabilities.

According to PIND’s Peacebuilding Program Manager, David Udofia, the program, which empowers 18 to 35-year-olds, is part of PIND’s peacebuilding strategy of contributing to preventing, mitigating, and resolving violent conflicts in the Niger Delta.

“Members are young people passionate about making a difference in their communities through peacebuilding,” he said. “They were selected for their passion for supporting existing peacebuilding structures and implementing solutions to conflicts.”

He said the youths learned how to use PIND’s EWER system to report conflicts and respond to those threats quickly while they were also shown how to send text messages through PIND’s Integrated Peace and Development Unit (IPDU) SMS-based platform.

Speaking on some benefits of the program to the youth, PIND’s Peacebuilding Capacity Building Coordinator, Chukwudi Njoku, said it was an opportunity for the participants to gain new knowledge, share ideas, and contribute to peace and development in their communities and the Niger Delta at large.

He added that the beneficiaries also benefit from training in leadership, volunteerism, conflict management, analysis, peacebuilding advocacy, community engagement, and election monitoring/reporting. They also learned the applicability of innovations such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for peacebuilding processes.

The Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND) has trained 70 agro-service providers across the nine Niger Delta states to equip service providers with new business skills, practices, and processes to improve their service delivery to Niger Delta farmers and enterprises.



The two workshops which took place in Warri, Delta State, and Uyo, Akwa-Ibom State under PIND’s Market System Development (MSD) project provided the service providers the opportunities to network and share peer-to-peer knowledge.



PIND’s Program Director, Dr. Effiong Essien said the end goal of the workshops is to “Improve the lives and livelihood of the small-holder farmers (SHFs), micro-small-and-medium-enterprises (MSMEs), and service providers through skill-building and skill-sharing.”



The workshops provided training on business development and management, business sustainability, capacity building, customer relationships, marketing/sales support services, and strategy development, among other skills.



A participant, Gabriel Udo, thanked PIND for the opportunity to be part of the training and shared the impact it has had on him. He said, “I have attended other workshops and training, but this is more exceptional. It is more impactful, and I’ve learned a lot. Due to this training, I am already making calls informing my workers on my farms of what to change.”



“I’m highly favoured to be among the participants,” said Miller Felicia, an oil palm farmer from Rivers State. “This training has given me an edge. My blood is hot to deliver. In every business, you will succeed if you have a vision. You must also have value. I am not the only service provider, but people cherished me because I know how to reward them. PIND has given me the innovation to go and practice,” she said.



PIND’s MSD project focuses on the services market and employs a service provider model, which leverages the capacity and skills of the service providers to boost overall market efficiency, productivity, and income.



At the end of the training, the PIND service providers are expected to use their learned skills to help small-holder farmers and MSMEs in various value chains such as cocoa, poultry, oil palm, cassava, and aquaculture in the Niger Delta to improve their efficiency, productivity, and income. They train the farmers and entrepreneurs on best farming practices, business management, soft skills, and conflict sensitivity training.



Since its inception in 2012, PIND’s MSD project has reached 931,699 farmers and MSMEs in the Niger Delta with information on agricultural and business best practices. 457,728 farmers and MSMEs adopted knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) that improved productivity to the tune of NGN 51.4 billion.



“Thanks to their training, most of our service providers have now positioned themselves to serve as a bridge between farmers, enterprise groups, and other agro-allied actors,” said Effiong.

The Foundation for Partnership Initiative in the Niger Delta (PIND) has said it facilitated 10,471 new jobs in 2021 to reduce poverty and improve economic development in the Niger Delta.



This was contained in the 2021 Annual Report released last week by the development organization. PIND facilitated the jobs across five agricultural value chains such as aquaculture, cassava, cocoa, palm oil, poultry and an enterprise development project in which the Market Systems Development (MSD) project intervenes.



PIND's Market Systems Development (MSD) project works through a network of trained and incentivized market system actors (service providers, agro-dealers, input companies, fabricators, equipment dealers, financial institutions, etc.) to support farmers and small businesses in the Niger Delta region to improve their productivity, increase their incomes and create new jobs.



“PIND’s work as a long-time, independent development resource in the Niger Delta has empowered the region’s communities, bestriding age, ability, education, gender, location, or status,’’ said PIND’s Executive Director, Tunji Idowu. “Our programs deliver the financing, information, linkages, mindsets, skills, technologies, and tools that have proven to improve lives and livelihoods.”



Through its MSD project, PIND implement interventions that address the root causes of market failure and ensure that farmers and related businesses have the essential elements such as quality inputs, best farming & business practices, efficient technologies, new markets, and funding to increase their business and maximize profit.



The report revealed that N10.75 billion was invested in its MSD value chains by public and private sector actors and N71 million in grants distributed to Delta State Nigeria implementing partners to provide more than 580 youth with technical and vocational education and training



The report states that N466.7 million was saved by community users of facilitated renewable energy solutions; with women-run households and businesses making up 62 percent of first-time beneficiaries



“N71 million in grants distributed to Delta State Nigeria implementing partners to provide more than 580 youth with technical and vocational education and training and more than 113,300 people reached with gender equity and social inclusion messaging (GESI) about opportunities for women and persons with disabilities (PWDs),” the report revealed.



PIND Board of Trustees Chairperson Rick Kennedy therefore urged stakeholders to invest in addressing unemployment and poverty in Nigeria, especially in the Niger Delta region of the country.



“As the landscape in which we work evolves and still presents challenges—such as funding opportunities being redirected out of the Niger Delta —it is even more apparent that multiple partners and stakeholders in all sectors must come together to address the needs of the region,” he said.



Read and download the report https://pindfoundation.org/pind-2021-annual-report/

Ahead of the 2023 general elections, non-profit, the Foundation for Partnership Initiative in the Niger Delta (PIND) has urged Nigerian youths to vote competent leaders and not sell their integrity.

The Executive Director, Dr. Tunji Idowu said this during a one-day breakfast mentorship programme organized in collaboration with Beyond Regular and MTN in Port Harcourt

Idowu while speaking with 320 young professionals at the programme urged the youths not to sell their integrity in the course of their various endeavours, especially as the country is entering a period when new leaders would be elected to public offices.

"The Nigerian youths should not sell their integrity, but every human being that wants to maintain their dignity needs to uphold their integrity. But to the Nigerian youths is to say hey! Those of us ahead of you have messed things up, and don't follow their example of going the path of lack of integrity.

"Elections are coming, don't become tools that are going to be used to worsen an already bad situation, make sure that you have criteria for due diligence, even if people come and share money, find a way in which you are doing things according to values,” he said.

Explaining the reason behind the event, Idowu said, "The event was organised by Unboxed Conferences to give young people the opportunity of being mentored by seasoned professionals, some of whom would never have access to the organisers on their terms.

Idowu disclosed that PIND Foundation has the intention to empower 6,000 Niger Delta youths in business and skills acquisitions before the end of the year.

"In the pilot we did in Abia, Rivers, and Akwa Ibom states, we trained over 4,300 youths. We are scaling that up with an additional 1000 because the essence of the pilot is to understand what works and what you can improve or what you do away with, it's been a successful pilot, we're now scaling it up again with another 1000 in those three states, while in Delta, we are taking on over 600.

"So what I'm saying is, when you count from the three years from 2018 going forward, the additional 1600, you will have about 6000 that have been trained, placed, supported to start businesses, not all of them because they have different pathways, some with work, some will be job owners, some will be business starters," he said.

On his part, the Chief Responsibility Officer for Unboxed Conferences, Wale Adenuga, who expressed excitement over the turnout of the participants and mentors from different works of life, noted that his conviction to helping the youths succeed informed the programme.

"We are happy in terms of the turnout, all the mentors are here, the young people are also here, and we think it's going to be a great learning experience, especially between the mentors and the mentees, they (mentors) have learnt a whole lot of things over their lives, so this opportunity, connecting together is an amazing experience for everyone.

"I think for me it's basically my own personal story, probably how I failed in the past, I believe in practical knowledge, I believe in being held by the hand and shown the way and that's exactly what this is all about and I will keep doing that until my dying day," he said.

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