North East Govs, IOM To Build More Houses For Displaced Persons

Governors of the North East region have intensified efforts to partner with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and other stakeholders to build more houses for people who were displaced from their homes following the protracted Boko Haram insurgency.

Governor of Borno State Babagana Zulum stated this on behalf of his colleagues in the three most affected states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, when he made his remarks during the presentation of awards to winners of the inaugural Housing Design Competition tagged “Home After Crisis” in Abuja, yesterday.
The governor told reporters in an interview that the security situation in his state has improved by 90 per cent, adding that there are many safe areas to construct more affordable housing units for the displaced person. He assured that the governors of the northeast states “will provide the political leadership to partner with the IOM and the other organizations to build more homes for displaced communities.”

He commended the IOM, which has so far, constructed housing units to accommodate 9,000 people in the region, stressing that the effort is aimed at restoring dignity and stability to those that went “through unimaginable hardship.”
The 2023 “Home After Crisis” design competition, funded by the Nigerian Humanitarian Fund (NHF), produced three main winners (first, second and third) and others who went home with cash prizes totaling 12,000 Euros.
The first prize of 5,000 Euros went to the group that designed ‘New Home New Beginning’ the second prize of 3,000 Euros went to the group that designed ‘Zuhura Zuhair’ while the third prize of 2,000 Euros went to the group that designed ‘Homing Scheme’.

The IOM chief of mission to Nigeria, Laurent De Boeck, in his address said the aim is to deliver life-saving responses that support the transition of vulnerable communities out of humanitarian assistance towards development programmes.
He said, “Since 2015, the northeast of Nigeria has faced escalating violence, leading to an unprecedented housing emergency. As of 2023, an estimated 3.5 million people had lost their homes or lived in precarious conditions.

“Nigeria currently experiences an acute housing deficit, estimated at around 23 million, requiring the construction of one million housing units annually for the next 20 years. At the IOM, we commit to support the government and the people of Nigeria to increase the current production rate of housing construction with the private sector.”
To address this, IOM Nigeria is actively working to overcome the shelter emergency with a durable housing strategy. The objective, according Boeck, is to move beyond merely providing housing units and embrace the concepts of providing a home in line with the IOM Strategy for Nigeria 2023-2027.
The “Home After Crisis” brought together 1,600 designers, architects and engineers from across 100 countries and a quarter of them were Nigerians. The experts have developed 250 design proposals for low-cost and innovative housing.