Summary of Security Risk Assessment
      for the Agro-Climate Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) Project


Introduction
The Northern States including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is faced by rapid desert
encroachment from severe to moderate and marginal. The impacted states include Bauchi, Borno,
Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe, Zamfara, FCT, Benue, Nasarawa, Kogi, Plateau,
Adamawa, Taraba, Niger, Kwara and Kaduna.
The perennial problem of desertification became obvious, due to climate change, human activities and
climate variation such as prolong droughts and flood. The urgent and dire need to address this problem
brought about the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscape (ACReSAL) project by the
government of Nigeria. The ACReSAL project is embarked on by the Federal Government of Nigeria
(FGN) to build community resilience as well as improve the sustainable productivity of its natural
resources in the 19 northern states of Nigeria namely: Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina,
Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe, Zamfara, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Benue, Nasarawa, Kogi, Plateau,
Adamawa, Taraba, Niger, Kwara and Kaduna. The proposed project, through a participatory approach,
will include the following component activities:
        Component A. Dry Land Management
        Component B. Community Climate Resilience
        Component C. Climate Change Institutional Strengthening and Project Management
        Component D. Contingency Emergency Response Component (CERC)
However, this laudable project is exposed to potential risks by the general insecurity in most parts of
the Northern States and the FCT, hence the need for a proper assessment of the security risk in the
project area to the extent that it could affect the project, project workers and project beneficiaries, as
well as the need to identify adequate measures to manage such security risk.


Security Risk Pattern in the Project Areas
The security situation in most part of the Northern States remains fragile as revealed by intelligence
analysis of data from ACLED and various official data as made available by the state security agencies
and open sources including the media both conventional and social media.
This security risk assessment identified threats and the vulnerability of the project to these threats, their
likely impact and the drivers of insecurity including terrorism and insurgency, farmers herders’ clashes,
banditry, kidnapping and opportunistic and violent crimes such as break ins, mugging, road blockage,
attack on travel routes, armed robbery and gang violence, etc.
Insurgency and Terrorism: This relates to the activities of groups such as Jama’atul Ahlis Sunna lil
Dawatil wal Jihad (JAS) or Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) seek
to establish a Sharia caliphate in the Lake Chad Basin. These groups attempt to take over territories and
impose their own version of Islamic doctrines on their victims. Their main areas of influence are in
Borno, its borders with Yobe and Adamawa States.
Armed Banditry: Banditry is carried out by assailants who are popularly described as “unknown
gunmen�. These group rustle cattle, displace communities and engage in kidnap for ransom. The bandits
operate in most part of north central and northwest states, especially in Katsina, Zamfara, Niger, Kaduna
and Kebbi.


Kidnapping: This involves forceful adoption (abduction) and taking away of people by criminals or
terrorist groups to raise money through ransom payment to buy weapons and equipment to further their
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operations. The most affected states including Kaduna, Katsina, Niger and Zamfara, where communities
have informants and suppliers feeding in on the industry
Opportunistic Crime: These are opportunistic crimes resulting from limited job and high
unemployment rates.
Farmers and Herders Violence: These are clashes between farmers and herders which is becoming
frequent and attackers more emboldened. The situation is particularly worsened by emerging ethnic and
religious dimensions the crisis has adopted. This threat remains one of the most severe challenges in
Nigeria security space particularly around the middle belt.
Road Travel Risk: Road travel remains porous to attacks by criminal gangs who engage in robbery,
extortion, and kidnap for ransom. Mostly driven by financial benefits, these attacks target persons
perceived to be wealthy, including business and government officials due to the believe that they have
high “ransom� value.
Gang Violence: This category involves violence committed by criminal gangs involved in large-scale
cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom, armed robbery, pillage, and attacks on gold miners and traders.
The authorities sometimes also refer to these gangs as “bandits� although this report describes them as
“criminal� groups, gangs or organizations.


The assessment categorised the locations according to the assessed threat and risk levels namely:
High Risk: These are areas with high security threat resulting from the activities of terrorist groups and
insurgency. Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Zamfara, Kaduna, Kastina, Niger, Sokoto, Benue.
Medium Risk: These are areas where the risk is not as high as obtained in situation of terrorist/
insurgent activities, however, there are prevalence of banditry and kidnapping activities. Plateau,
Nasarawa, FCT, Bauchi, Kebbi.
Low Risk: These are areas with occasional kidnapping and farmers / herder clashes Kogi, Kwara,
Gombe, Kano, Taraba, Jigawa.
Furthermore, the assessment identified the following activities as having the most potential risks and
requiring enhanced mitigation measures:
    •   Travelling by Air and Road
    •   Interface by relevant project stakeholders/focal points, with local stakeholders in the project
        space.
    •   Interface with project host communities, this will involve community engagements and
        sensing
    •   Frequent trips through and from the project sites.
    •   Construction and occupation of project sites.
    •   Survey and mapping of project sites.
In addition, other ACReSAL project activities identified as having risk exposure relates to community
and household level investment intervention such as agricultural / irrigation support, community level
infrastructure / household intervention in water harvesting etc including landscape restoration/ micro
watershed and community development plans activities.


Proposed Security Risk Mitigation Principle
Having identified the risk and possible impact on the project in the event of any breach of security and
attack, this security risk assessment framework provides the guideline for the development of
appropriate state level security assessments and management plans prior to the start of any activities in

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the relevant State. State Level Security Management Plan will also include clear escalation protocol
and responsibility in the event that security situation worsens in any site.
To address identified risk at state level, public and private security forces may be used to provide
protection for the project. The use of these security forces will be guided by the following principles:
    i.      Adherence to the Voluntary Principles of Security and Human Rights abuses and Code of
            Conduct. In addition,
                •   Any private and public security forces to be deployed or dedicated to the project
                    must be subjected to screening for any past human rights violations and be trained
                    on SEA/SH and GBV prevention, human rights and international humanitarian
                    law, etc.
                •   Any private and public security force to be deployed must be trained on conduct of
                    conduct on the use of force and must have signed the required code of conduct
                    before deployment to the project.
    ii.     Institutional Arrangement
            •   Setting up of a security management structure / forum at the federal and state levels.
                This structure will be an inter-agency security committee or forum that will be
                responsible for coordinating the operation of all security forces (private and public
                security) and for sharing security information and incident reports. The security focal
                person at the Federal level under the guidance of the National Project Coordinators will
                be in charge of facilitating the set up / collaboration and keeping records including
                those of stakeholders.
            •   The security focal person at the federal level will be responsible for the security of the
                project throughout the project’s life. The federal security focal person and state level
                security officers who will oversee the day-to-day activities (including supervising the
                deployment of security officer - public and private) shall ensure coordination of all
                security requirements /activities with the relevant office/officer in charge of the state
                Government Security Agency/Agencies (GSAs).
            •   Effective communications system is vital for personal safety and security of project
                personnel. In order to monitor staff movements more effectively, and to alert others or
                to be alerted in the event of potential insecurity and to avoid incident, the state level
                SMP will include an effective communication system such as cellular phones (with
                consideration for service providers with reliable coverage in the state) including
                computer enabled communication capability, land line and radio phones.
            •   The state security focal persons will report all security, safety, and serious health incidences
                to the State project coordinator who will report to the relevant state security agency and
                National Project Coordinator at the Federal level, where appropriate. The confidentiality of
                the reporting will ultimately be the responsibility of the state security focal person. The
                basic principle will be to convey the required information quickly and efficiently to
                those responsible to provide help including escalation process if situation worsens.
                Reports must be kept in a secure location and only accessible to the appropriate
                authorities to ensure confidentiality.
    iii.    The adoption of the 4Ds security strategy namely - deterrence, detection, delay (Any
            security measures / device put in place to limit security threat before calling for help), and
            denial (Any security measure / Action put in place to avoid any security breach) against all
            hostile activities throughout the project lifecycle. To be ensured by deployed security
            forces.
    iv.     Escort security protocol of lead (the team of security officers responsible for leading a
            convoy movement from point A to Point B or from one location to another) and chase (the
            team of security officers responsible for deterring any potential threat during convoy
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            movement from one location to another), to reduce risks associated with road travels in
            recent day Nigeria
    v.      Continuous threat forecast and appraisal through an intelligence risk management program.
    vi.      Leveraging on the public and private security to provide protection and timely / actionable
            intelligence but ensuring strict observance of relevant human rights, limited use of force
            and personnel non-lethal requirements e.g., batons, pepper spray, hand cuffs, whistles etc.
    vii.    Constant engagements with the local communities and other relevant stakeholders if and
            when the need arises on any of the project sites as documented in the project SEP.
    viii.   State level SMP will include a system to receive and address security / security force
            personnel related allegations / complaints such as abuse of power, excessive use of force,
            retaliation, sexual harassment and exploitation, gender-based violence etc. Allegations or
            incidents related to security personnel must be documented and reported to the Bank
            through the federal level security focal persons within 48 hours of the incident occurring.


State Level Security Risk Assessment
Prior to commencement of state level SMP, the Borrower through the security management structure /
forum will conduct a security risk assessment (which will be on-going and the SMP revised accordingly)
with all relevant stakeholders including community members, youth, traditional rulers and all relevant
state security institution involved in security matters to determine the threat level of the security of the
state. All developed security management plan by each state will be reviewed and cleared by the state /
federal security focal persons.




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