Alert 300: Anticipation of electoral violence in Nigeria
The space of forecast-based and anticipatory action is predominantly made up of organisations acting in anticipation of natural disasters or famine. What makes Start Network stand out against other organisations is our ability to also act in…
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Anticipating conflict as a Start Network niche
The space of forecast-based and anticipatory action is predominantly made up of organisations acting in anticipation of natural disasters or famine. What makes Start Network stand out against other organisations is our ability to also act in anticipation of man-made or conflict-related crises. The way in which Start Network operates through its network of aid agencies enables us to tap into an established operational presence in these highly sensitive contexts, which ensures that information for anticipation programming is readily available and our interventions are highly contextualised.
Since 2017 member have successfully implemented seven anticipatory alerts which are linked to violence, conflict, or displacement. A typical example of one of these alerts is
Alert 300, which was raised in anticipation of electoral violence in Nigeria.
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Much of the electoral violence which was predicted across the country did not take place. Member agencies on the ground attributed this to both the election results and to the anticipation programming. Whilst there are numerous direct and indirect factors which affect the degree of political violence experienced across Nigeria, it is apparent that this anticipation project was effective by providing community sensitisation activities at the right time prior to the election, and if violence was to break out the response activities were prepared in the right location in order to support immediately.