June 2021
The latest edition of the MCN Annual Perception Survey was conducted in May 2021. The data on the impact of the programme is encouraging, with strong indications that many people in the communities where the programme works, believe that conflict mechanisms are functioning better than they were three years ago.
The survey of 4,850 residents of 45 local government areas (LGAs) across the three programme states (Adamawa, Borno and Yobe) was carried out by Practical Sampling International (PSI) over the course of six weeks in April and May 2021.
Two of the key areas where the programme is seeking to make an impact are in the stability of communities and the relevance, value and effectiveness of conflict prevention and response mechanisms. The table below shows the survey results for the questions focused on these two areas.
|
Question |
Options | All respondents | Male | Female |
| How stable do you think the community is? | Very stable | 50% | 49% | 51% |
| Quite stable | 40% | 39% | 41% | |
| Very/quite unstable | 10% | 12% | 7% | |
| Considering all of the conflict prevention / response mechanisms working in this community, how relevant, valuable and effective are they? | Very relevant, valuable and effective | 54% | 56% | 53% |
| Somewhat relevant, valuable and effective | 38% | 36% | 38% | |
| Not very/not at all relevant, valuable and effective | 7% | 7% | 8% |
Perceived stability has seen a small but steady increase in the past three years (from 47% to 50%) with a notable nine out of ten of 2021 respondents stating they believe that their communities are very stable or quite stable. Women have a marginally higher sense of the stability of their communities than men.
Even more impressive is the perceived relevance, value and effectiveness of conflict response mechanisms. Over half of those surveyed (54%) believe that these mechanisms are very relevant, valuable and effective. This reflects an improvement of half as much again since the baseline survey in December 2017 when the level was 36%. Men have marginally higher impressions of the value of these mechanisms than women.
Considering the multiplying difficulties faced by residents of Northeast Nigeria over the past few years, with the ongoing insurgency, struggles over land and water use and the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, to be able to demonstrate improved satisfaction levels amongst citizens is very satisfying.
Over half of those surveyed (54%) believe that these mechanisms are very relevant, valuable and effective.
