The PeARLS Project brings communities and key stakeholders together to advance peacebuilding, accountability, resilience and local solutions in Kaduna and Plateau States.The landmark convening brought together key State and Local Government Representatives, revered Traditional and Religious Leaders, Security Agencies, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Women and Youth Leaders, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), Development Partners, and frontline Peace Practitioners. Seated around a single consultative roundtable in absolute unity, they spoke with one resounding voice and a common vision that revitalises enduring hope.
“If conflict can travel across boundaries, then peacebuilding must also be able to travel across those boundaries.”
— The PeARLS Cross-Border Strategic Mandate
Why Cross-Border Peace Architecture is Demanded
It is no longer news that Plateau and Kaduna States have experienced shared vulnerability to cross-boundary conflicts over prolonged periods. Grazing paths, trading routes, farming settlements, and communal kinship ties routinely transcend administrative state lines; similarly, when social friction ignites in one corridor, its destabilising ripples rapidly traverse state borders.
Consequently, sustainable peace cannot be engineered simply by operating within isolated communal silos. Lasting stability requires the intentional establishment of cross-boundary institutions, dialogue mechanisms, and collaborative security frameworks that bridge neighboring clusters. This inter-community bridge is fundamental to the architecture of the PeARLS initiative.
Stakeholders at the PeARLS Project community-led peacebuilding engagement in Jos, Plateau State.
The PeARLS Deliverables: Restoring Local Agency
The project moves past top-down interventions to return moral agency and decision-making power directly to the people affected by violence. Under the PeARLS framework, communities will:
Exchange Lived Experiences
Facilitating honest, cross-border community dialogues that dismantle prejudice and build shared empathy.
Co-Design Local Solutions
Empowering grassroots actors to identify root grievances and implement self-regulated, indigenous pacts.
Direct Civic Policy Input
Ensuring local voices directly influence state and municipal policies that govern community livelihoods.
Cultivate Resilience & Trust
Strengthening internal community resilience, healing collective trauma, and creating lasting social safety nets.
Consortium Partnership & Target Implementation
The PeARLS Project is a collaborative signature initiative spearheaded by Christian Aid alongside its trusted consortium partners: the Christian Council of Nigeria (CCN) and the Social Justice and Human Development for Peace Initiative (JDPC Jos).
Implementation will concentrate across four focal Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Plateau and Kaduna States. By establishing that locally generated solutions enjoy greater longevity than imported fixes, the project demonstrates how communal trust heals relational trauma, reinforces physical security, and preserves generations to come.
Launch Event Photo Gallery
High-resolution event photography from Odilin Event Centre, Jos • Credit: Matthew Agbo
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