The Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), yesterday, had a fruitful session with Norwegian Special Mission on areas the Royal Kingdom of Norway could improve development engagements with Africa and its sub-regions.
Speaking at the event, which held at the new ultra modern NIIA Conference Chamber, NIIA’s Director General, Prof. Eghosa Osaghae commended Norway on her relentless quest at strengthening diplomatic ties with Nigeria over the last decades.
He however cautioned against imposition of International engagements choices and options on the ‘Global South’, by advocating for a two-way approach.
He further enjoined Norway to expand its scope of engagements to a regional scale as majority of conflicts patterns were transnational in character.
The Deputy Ambassador of the Kingdom of Norway to Nigeria, Mrs. Ingrid Skjolaas and the Embassy Councillor, Mr. Eivind Fjeldstad took turns to enumerate Norway’s multilateral cooperations and contributions to Nigeria, West Africa and Africa in general.
They sought for more effective strategies in engaging Africa on issues such as security policy, multilateral cooperations, climate change and development partnerships.
NIIA’s senior research experts, Prof. Femi Otunbajo, Dr. Joshua Bolarinwa and a host of others suggested arrays of realistic development engagements strategies to the visitors, particularly the need of building sustainable social infrastructure, deliberate policy on urban renewal, afforestation engagements, technical support to revive Nigeria’s refineries, increased presence in Lake Chad Basin, call for bilateral investment treaties, partnership with NIIA on effective research into Blue Economy, Ocean Governance amongst others.
