The Director-General of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), Dr Joseph Ochogwu, has called for increased investment in peacebuilding, warning that the cost of failing to prevent conflicts is far greater than the resources required to sustain peace.
Ochogwu made the call on Thursday in Abuja while delivering a keynote lecture titled, “Investing in Peace: A Collective Responsibility for Everyone,” at the 2026 Peace and Dialogue Awards organised by the Ufuk Dialogue Foundation in collaboration with the IPCR.
He urged Nigeria and other countries to shift from responding to conflicts after they erupt to investing more in prevention, early warning systems, peace education, youth employment, interfaith literacy, justice reform and community mediation.
Ochogwu said: “To invest in peace is to move from rhetoric to resources, from reaction to prevention.”
He noted that global military expenditure exceeded $2.4tn in 2024, while peacebuilding spending remained below $60bn, representing barely 2.5 per cent of military expenditure.
He said: “We fund the bullet, not the classroom that could have prevented the trigger.”
According to the IPCR DG, West Africa and the Sahel are facing a combination of extremism, unconstitutional transitions, farmer-herder tensions and climate-driven displacement. He called for cross-border early warning systems and joint security-community mechanisms to address the challenges.
Ochogwu said Nigeria’s conflicts were also layered, ranging from extremism in the North-East and banditry in the North-West and North-Central to resource conflicts in the Middle Belt, separatist agitation in the South-East and urban fragility.
He warned: “A blanket approach will fail.”
The IPCR DG also described the Federal Government’s economic reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda as an investment in peace, arguing that job creation and poverty reduction could reduce vulnerability to conflict.
Ochogwu said: “Economic renewal is not a separate track; it is the bedrock on which peace is sustained.”
He identified a perception gap, fragmented interventions, funding misalignment and the absence of effective tracking mechanisms as four major reasons for Nigeria’s underinvestment in peacebuilding.
He added that security hardware attracted greater visibility than preventive measures, while donor-funded interventions were often poorly aligned with national plans. According to him, less than 0.5 per cent of the budgets of Ministries, Departments and Agencies was coded for peacebuilding.
On the economic cost of conflict, Ochogwu said violence cost the global economy about $19.1tn in 2024, equivalent to 13.5 per cent of global GDP, while every dollar not invested in prevention could cost 20 times more in humanitarian response and reconstruction.
He said Nigeria had lost more than $14bn to farmer-herder conflict over five years and more than $9bn to infrastructure damage in the North-East, with 2.2 million people displaced.
Ochogwu said: “The cost of not investing in peace far exceeds the cost of investing in it.”
He proposed a five-point compact involving government, the private sector, faith and traditional leaders, civil society and citizens.
He urged the government to fast-track the National Peace Policy, establish a National Peace Investment Fund, legislate a minimum three per cent peacebuilding allocation across relevant MDAs and strengthen the IPCR’s coordination mandate.
He also called on the private sector to dedicate one per cent of its corporate social responsibility funds to peacebuilding.
Ochogwu said: “Peace is an enabler of profit.”
Also speaking, the President of the Ufuk Dialogue Foundation, Emrah Ilgen, said Nigeria’s diversity should be seen as an advantage rather than a source of division.
Ilgen said investing in peace involved building relationships, creating space for people with differing views to engage in dialogue and focusing on areas of common ground.
He said: “For Ufuk Dialogue Foundation, investing in peace means investing in relationships.”
The foundation, in partnership with the IPCR, presented awards to individuals, organisations and communities recognised for contributions to peace, reconciliation, humanitarian service, education and youth development.
The Chairman of the occasion, Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Disu, represented by AIG Victor Olaiya, stressed the relationship between peace and democracy.
Disu said: “Peace and democracy cannot be separated because they are mutually reinforcing.”
He added: “Just as security is everyone’s business, peace is also everyone’s business.”
The IGP urged the award recipients to see the recognition as a renewed call to action rather than an endpoint.
He said: “These awards send a message. They tell every Nigerian that peacebuilding is valuable work. They tell our young people that service to humanity is worthy of recognition.”
Disu also urged Nigerian youths to avoid actions capable of undermining their future or bringing disrepute to their families and the country.
