Build data infrastructure for 2.9million IDPs in conflict zones — UI, Warwick Researchers tell FG

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THE University of Ibadan Data and Displacement Research team has tasked the Nigerian government to build technological infrastructure that will make data collection of the over 2.9million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the North East Nigeria coherent in order to improve their conditions.

Making the charge was Dr Olufunke Fayehun, the lead  investigator of Data and Displacement project, which is funded by the United Kingdom Arts and Humanities Research Council and led by Professor Vicki Squire of the University of Warwick at the dissemination conference held in Abuja.

According to her, ensuring coherent data collection on IDPs in the North East, Nigeria, will guide against wastages and ensure that the IDPs benefit from the ethical data collected to further their welfare.

She added that “there are more than 2.9 million internally Displaced Persons in the North-Eastern Nigeria; a significant location of armed conflicts in the country. This has led to extended consequences, including mortality, multiple displacements, loss of livelihood and supportive existential systems.

“While the focus of many humanitarian and diplomatic interventions in the IDPs camps in Nigeria has been on immediate livelihood issues such as feeding, medical care, clothing and shelter, key stakeholders have expressed the need for a robust data ecosystem to support such interventions.”

In conjunction with the co-investigator, Dr Olayinka Akanle, the team asked the government to “improve the coordination of activities, efforts and resources of stakeholders towards providing technological and infrastructural facilities as well as improve capacities for efficient and ethical data collection, storage and utilisation.”

They also called on the government to create “awareness among IDPs about the processes of data capturing, data rights and the benefits of improved information for humanitarian interventions as well as to organise orientation and sensitisation meetings with them and other stakeholders to support sustainable ethical-data processes and systems.”

While speaking with journalists, the country director of Amnesty International, Mrs Osai Ojigho, maintained that the funds available to humanitarian assistance is too little to tackle the enormity of the challenges facing the IDPs.

She added that humanitarian assistance must be beyond attending to basic needs of the IDPs, but dealing with restoring people to their homelands without a threat to their livelihoods and security.

“Just providing the basic needs for the IDPs is not sufficient to make them comfortable and return to their homelands. Also, insecurity in the North East has contributed to these conditions despite the interventions which started about 10 years ago,” Ojigho said.

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