By Mike Olukayode
The Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, IPCR, and the Ufuk Dialogue Foundation Nigeria have called on government, businesses, civil society, and communities to invest deliberately in peacebuilding, warning that the cost of conflict far outweighs the cost of prevention.
Speaking on Thursday, 10th September 2026, at the 2026 Peace and Dialogue Awards in Abuja, the Director-General of IPCR, Dr Joseph Ochogwu, said Nigeria must begin to treat peace as an investment that requires consistent funding, planning and accountability.
The event was organised by the Ufuk Dialogue Foundation in collaboration with the IPCR.
Ochogwu noted that while global military expenditure exceeded $2.4 trillion in 2024, spending on peacebuilding remained below $60 billion, representing about 2.5 per cent of military budgets.
“Why can trillions be mobilised for conflict, while far less is committed to prevention and peaceful societies?” he asked.
He said the IPCR had domesticated the 2026 International Day of Peace theme as “Invest in Peace for Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day,” stressing that peace “cannot be a seasonal product for 21st September. It must be deliberate, daily, and for all.”
The IPCR boss identified early-warning systems, peace education, youth employment, justice reform, community mediation, psychosocial healing, and greater inclusion of women and young people as priority areas for investment.
He warned that a blanket approach would fail, citing different drivers of conflict across Nigeria: extremism in the North-East, banditry in the North-West and North-Central, resource conflicts in the Middle Belt, separatist agitation in the South-East, and urban fragility.
Ochogwu linked economic reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda to peacebuilding, saying job creation and poverty reduction were critical to preventing violent mobilisation.
“Economic renewal is not a separate track; it is the bedrock on which peace is sustained,” he said.
He decried the lack of tracking for peace expenditure, noting that less than 0.5 per cent of MDA budgets were coded for peacebuilding, while CSR rarely targeted the sector.
Citing global data, he said the economic cost of violence reached $19.1 trillion in 2024, or 13.5 per cent of global GDP. In Nigeria, farmer-herder conflicts had cost over $14 billion in five years, while infrastructure damage in the North-East exceeded $9 billion with 2.2 million people displaced.
“The cost of not investing in peace far exceeds the cost of investing in it,” he said.
To address this, Ochogwu proposed a five-point compact: speedy implementation of the National Peace Policy; establishment of a National Peace Investment Fund; legislation for a minimum 3 per cent peacebuilding allocation across relevant MDAs; stronger IPCR coordination and early-warning mandate; and commitment of at least 1 per cent of CSR spending to peace initiatives.
He also urged faith and traditional leaders to institutionalise interfaith dialogue and dispute-resolution mechanisms in every ward, and called for a Peace Investment Tracker Dashboard at the IPCR.
The Chairperson of the Awards, Inspector-General of Police Olatunji Rilwan Disu, NPM, said peace and democracy were mutually reinforcing and stressed the need for peaceful engagement to strengthen democratic development.
