Niger Delta Human Development Report - UNDP Nigeria - United ...

The key to building
partnerships is to be
strategic, which
encompasses the
notion that current
strategic advantages
do not outweigh the
interests of other
people.
7
during religious conventions, conferences
and other related programmes.
• Workplace policies on HIV should be
encouraged in public and private institutions,
with particular emphasis on
issues relating to stigma and discrimination
against people living with
HIV&AIDS.
• Strong leadership is needed at all levels
of society.
• The responses of state and local governments
and the NDDC should be
institutionalized and sustained. They
should emphasize capacity development,
advocacy and awareness, resource
deployment, planning, monitoring
and evaluation, governance and
coordination.
• Special programmes should assist orphans
and vulnerable children, including
through the provision of free health
care and education. Both the state and
local governments should be responsible
for this.
• Oil companies should include
HIV&AIDS assistance within their
social responsibility and community
development activities.
• The dearth of health care and
HIV*AIDS facilities is a matter of
urgent concern in the Niger Delta.
The shortage of voluntary counselling
and testing centres, services for the
prevention of mother-to-child transmission
and distribution points for
anti-retroviral drugs should be addressed
collectively, with state and local
governments in the driver’s seat
and the NDDC as the overall coordinator
for the region.
PARTNERSHIPS FOR SUSTAIN-
ABLE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
There is a growing consensus globally that
partnerships are critical to development.
This is exemplified by the fact that the
eighth MDG is on developing a global
partnership for development. But so far,
Nigeria has not built appropriate partnerships
for Nigeria in general and the Niger
Delta region in particular.
Partnerships will make or break the human
development agenda outlined above.
They could potentially be built at all lev-
els—local, state, national and international.
Nationally, for instance, partnerships are
necessary to build consensus on embracing
development that serves the people.
The failure of the National Political Reform
Conference to clearly address derivation
policy and the deepening of the
conflicts in the Niger Delta thereafter
show, if anything, that failures to build
national partnerships for development can
undermine sustainable human development
not just for the delta but also for all
of Nigeria.
It is important to remember that not all
partnerships are automatically in the service
of development, however. For instance,
the joint venture partnerships between
the Federal Government and foreign
oil companies have at best not developed
the Niger Delta region and at worst
have bred a crippling form of underdevelopment.
In building partnerships for sustainable
human development, the following players
or stakeholders are crucial:
• the citizens of the Niger Delta and
other parts of Nigeria
• oil-producing communities and the
rest of Nigeria
• NGOs and community-based
organizations
• businesses
• governments (local, state and federal)
• the global community (NGOs, governments,
multilateral and bilateral
organizations, etc.)
What kinds of partnerships are feasible for
the delta? There are no easy answers, partly
because of the heterogeneity of stakeholders
and partly because those who have strategic
advantages and benefit from the status
quo are often unwilling to make the
concessions required for partnerships. But
building mutually beneficial partnerships at
the following points will determine the future
course of development:
• inter-governmental (local, state and
federal)—to resolve resource control
problems, the peace and governance
agendas, etc.;
• intra-governmental (the executive
branch, legislature and judiciary)—to
172 NIGER DELTA HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT