How did this project come about?
MOHAMED YAHYA: To give you some background, the northeastern part of Nigeria has experienced over 12 years of an ISIS-type terrorist insurgency. They go to places that have seen deprivation; they don’t go to places where there is a high level of education or opportunities. So what do we do more than a decade after? What lessons have we learned in engaging and pushing back the growth of violent extremism around the world? The UNDP’s perspective is that the root cause is lack of opportunities and development — failure of development — and the solutions will also be found in bringing about development, basic services, security, sense of dignity to people, education, health, et cetera. So out of that concept, we started small in a few very volatile areas that have been impacted, like Ngarannam, which was completely devastated. Then the idea was, can we do three things: Can we bring about security? Can we bring livelihood and basic services back? And can we give people an opportunity to contribute to how their communities are built?
The essential part of stabilization is to bring the state
