Head of Office – Catholic Relief services
The key risk people need to be aware of in my line of work is exposure to attacks by organized armed groups (Boko Haram). At CRS we define such risk as negative incidents that can affect/interfere with the work we do with/for vulnerable communities in North East Nigeria. People struggle to understand that risk mitigation is everyone’s business. It’s not just the job of the security team. Personal safety and security begins with the individual. In addition, people fail to understand that insurgency makes the situation in North East Nigeria very fluid and dynamic. For example, you can have access to a community today and tomorrow that area can be overrun by insurgents. Data is not readily available in North East Nigeria. Where it is available, it is not broken down into digestible bits that people can easily interpret so as to make informed decisions. Where this data is available it hasn’t been analyzed in such a way that people can interpret and use for their choices and decisions.