The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has described community engagement as a veritable and non-negotiable necessity towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goals and for enhanced national cohesion.
The UNESCO Co-chair on Peace and Citizenship, Dr. Olaoluwa Oyinloye, who stated this called for adoption of community engagement; it is a panacea to the incidence of abandoned projects in the Nigerian polity.
Oyinloye, spoke at a three day Professional Capacity Building Workshop organized by the department of Conflict, Peace and Strategic Studies, Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD) with the theme
“Community Engagement and Accountability in Humanitarian Peace and Development.”
The programme had renowned scholars in the field presenting various papers which resonated with the theme and gave insight on positive engagement of the citizenry for developmental purposes.
Oyinloye, who is the Head of Department of Conflict, Peace and Strategic Studies, Afe Babalola University, charged stakeholders to adopt community engagement in pursuit of policies and projects that would better the lives of citizens at the grassroots.
The Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, identified community engagement as the game changer for enduring projects in the grassroots and very key to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Nigeria.
He stressed that people in the grassroots would take ownership of any project sited in their vicinity when they are properly carried along in the planning and execution of such projects and would always make use of them thereby preventing such amenities from being abandoned.
