Children in Labondo await an uncertain future. The pilot project offers stable housing and relative safety in a centralized community setting, but so much more is needed.
The Labondo Local Integration Pilot Project is a community development initiative established by UNHCR in collaboration with the Adamawa State government. The idea is to create a safe environment for Nigerian IDPs that is free of the dangers of further violence or ongoing displacement. The challenge now is to give new residents the vital counseling and trade skills training services they need.
In 2022, the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA or OCHA) began assessing the prospect of what it termed “durable solutions” for internally displaced persons (IDPs) languishing in often unsafe camp conditions in Nigeria’s Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe (BAY) States. Out of this assessment came the Labondo Local Integration Pilot Project, an initiative launched in June 2023 by the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Adamawa State, for the purpose of creating a community dedicated to the prospect of providing a durable solution for the ongoing IDP crisis in northeastern Nigeria.
According to OCHA/UNHCR, successful return and integration of IDPs in BAY states depend on addressing their diverse needs and ensuring security, essential services, social cohesion, and economic opportunities. Key findings expressed in OCHA’s assessment paper, “Durable Solutions: 2022 / 23 Assessing the prospects for durable solutions in the BAY states,”include IDPs' desire to return to their original locations, difficulties accessing basic needs and livelihood opportunities, concerns about security and housing, issues with obtaining documentation, and barriers to electoral participation.
In other words, to be a “durable solution” per the UNHCR’s primary goals, the Labondo project must provide a number of things that IDP camps often cannot, such as permanent housing; a safe environment that minimizes the risk of violence and further displacement; access to clean drinking water; access to markets; access and access to economic opportunity. And it must do so in a community environment that gives residents the opportunity to heal from the trauma of forced displacement, develop locally relevant income-generating skills, rebuild their lives, and contribute to long-term economic development in their communities.
Relocating to Labondo is completely voluntary. Since June of 2023, some 2,700 IDPs have chosen to move into one of the 450-plus housing units made available through the project. With IDPs less scattered in a patchwork of multiple camps that often present serious safety risks, the hope now is that relief and development organizations will be better able to focus their efforts on revitalizing the lives of displaced Nigerians.
It’s a lofty and worthy goal, fraught with challenges. But where UNHCR’s work in establishing the community ends, the work of organizations that have expertise in trauma counseling and trade skill development begins. ChildVoice is now in the process of establishing a presence in the Labondo community, having conducted initial assessments and registered 192 girls and boys as young as 13 years old for counseling, social activities, and skills training.