The Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), based in Abuja is collaborating with other agencies around the world to resolve conflicts in Africa.
The Director-General of the institute, Dr Bakut Bakut, made the announcement in Abuja on Sunday while speaking at the News Agency of Nigeria Forum.
He said the collaboration was in line with the mandate of the institute to find solutions to conflicts in African nations.
According to him, the collaborations have paid off, based on outcomes of conflict situations in West African and African countries.
Bakut said that the institute was also collaborating with research organisations in China, Japan and the Netherlands.
“We work with ECOWAS. We work with the African Union as well as regional and global agencies and institutions.
“In 2019, for instance, I was in South Africa, where we signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a university in South Africa.
“The Liberian crisis, the Sierra-Leonean crisis, the Zimbabwean crisis, the South Sudan crisis, were all negotiated in our hall here in Abuja.
“The institute’s mandate covers the whole of Africa not just Nigeria.
“The original idea was to have experts from the institute posted to all Nigerian embassies or high commissions in African countries,’’ Bakut said.
The director-general, an expert in international relations and crisis management, explained that although the institute’s mandate could not be said to be fully achieved, its efforts had constituted important work-in-progress.
He said that the institute was also involved in efforts to resolve the Somali crisis and giving early warning reports, especially on the movement of small arms and light weapons to African governments.
Bakut said that when, for instance, the U.S. government came up with a forecast that Nigeria would cease to exist as a country by 2015, the institute quickly wrote a position paper to the presidency to denounce the report.
“We have a centre for China-Africa Relations Research in the institute and it renders some elements of support to us.
“We also have support from Japan and the Netherlands.
According to him, most of the support and the outcomes usually come through the institute’s synergy with sister research institutions and organisations abroad and international non-governmental organisations, among others.
