ASSESSING THE INFLUENCE OF PEACE COMMITTEE ON THE DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION, AND OUTCOMES OF ACD'S PEACEBUILDING COMMUNICATION STRATEGY IN KEGBARA DERE AND BARANYOWA DERE COMMUNITIES, GOKANA LGA, RIVERS STATE
Keywords:
Peace Committee, Communication Strategy, Peace building, Community Engagement, Conflict ResolutionAbstract
The role of local peace committees in shaping effective peace building communication strategies remains underexplored, particularly in conflict-prone African communities, such as Kegbara Dere and Baranyowa Dere in Gokana Local Government Area, Rivers State, Nigeria, where resource-based tensions exacerbate inter-communal conflicts. This study examines how the peace committee influences the design, implementation, and outcomes of the Accord for Community Development’s (ACD) peace building communication strategy. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the study integrates qualitative data from key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and document analysis with quantitative data from structured questionnaires and interview guide administered to 400 respondents and 30 participants. The methodology, grounded in Creswell’s mixed-methods framework, ensures a holistic understanding of community dynamics through triangulation and robust validity checks, including inter-rater reliability and Cronbach’s Alpha testing. Findings reveal that the peace committee enhances ACD’s strategy by leveraging trusted local leaders, indigenous communication channels, and social networks, achieving a mean agreement score of 3.97 for effective word-of-mouth dissemination. However, challenges such as historical grievances and external political pressures (mean score 3.56) hinder open dialogue. These findings align with the study’s objectives to identify opportunities, challenges, and recommendations for sustainable peace building communication. Recommendations include prioritising youth and women’s inclusion in peace committees (mean score of 4.30), fostering multi-stakeholder collaborations (mean score of 4.25), and integrating culturally resonant tools like songs and drama (mean score of 3.86) to enhance engagement. The study uniquely contributes to peace building scholarship by providing empirical evidence of how local peace committees shape context-specific communication strategies in resource-conflict settings, offering actionable insights for policymakers and practitioners to strengthen grassroots peace processes in the Niger Delta and similar contexts.
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