The ongoing crisis in the Niger Delta has locked the area into perpetual unrest.  It accounts for thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in lost property, revenues and international investments.  The threat to the Nigerian state and its nationals could be deemed existential.  The crisis also plagues the energy security of multiple nations, and promotes chronic instability across markets local, national and worldwide.  Paradoxically, though, it is fueled by a robust economy of conflict that is aggressively stable.  The choice to participate in this economy can be rational.   Yet each decision to do so worsens the bind for all.  It is a system in which everyone loses.

Achieving change requires optimism.  The Niger Delta crisis can be solved.  Creativity, collaboration and will are needed, and very real hurdles exist.  But it can be done.  The Transnational Crisis Project's Niger Delta Cell seeks to galvanise all parties to the crisis into taking self-interested action to promote the shared interests of all.  

The people of the Niger Delta are both victims and active players in the conflict economy.  Seeing them as such, we believe, is the only road to lasting change.  Our research combines analysis of structural problems afflicting the area with a focus on understanding the needs and perceptions of local populations.  The recommendations that follow will transform complexity into collaboration, laying out the practical and profitable steps each party should take to advance common good.