January 2022 – November 2024

Summary

The aim of this project is to ensure communities in the Niger Delta fairly benefit from the proceeds of the oil and gas industry and that local and global environmental impact from the oil and gas industry is reduced. It seeks to scale-up some of the most successful areas of our work and innovate new solutions to environmental challenges in the region.

We’ll be scaling up our Community Monitoring and Advocacy Group (CMAG) approach across six Local Government Areas in Bayelsa, in 44 communities with an estimated population of 1.6m people. Between 2016-2020, this approach saw six communities secure nearly £10m worth of projects from government and oil companies, from drainage construction to vocational training programmes. We’ll also be continuing our work to call for improvements to environmental legislation and practice in the industry – for instance, through the reinitiative of our Environmental Performance Index which compared oil company environmental performance – as well as providing direct technical support to the Ministry of Environment to commence the development of an oil and gas industry methane emissions tracking tool – the latter will build on our existing work to improve the tracking of environmental emissions, including the Oil Spill Monitor and Gas Flare Tracker.

Aim

We want communities in the Niger Delta to experience fewer negative impacts from the oil and gas industry, and to fairly benefit from its revenues. We also want to ensure that both local and global environmental impact from the oil and gas industry is reduced.

Key activities

  • Establishing 24 Community Monitoring and Advocacy Groups (CMAGs), representing 44 communities (estimated population 1.6m), across six LGAs in Bayelsa stateto work with communities to identifydevelopment priorities and campaign for government and oil companies to deliver these.
  • Establishing a State Monitoring and Advocacy Group (SMAG) with representatives from each of the CMAGs. This group will enable CMAGs to identify collective priorities and scale-up their advocacy work to the state-level, with the aim of securing systematic, policy-level change by government (as opposed to only projects which benefit individual communities). A wider group of civil society organisations and journalists will also support this work.
  • Working with 60 participants from willing government Ministries, Departments and Agencies to adopt a more participatory approach to planning, budgeting and monitoring their projects and services in communities.
  • Supporting the Ministry of Environment and the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency to build a methane emissions tracking tool for the oil and gas industry.
  • Producing improved data and analysis on oil and gas industry pollution and working with regulator (NOSDRA) to use this data to improve how it regulates the industry. Specifically, this will include the production of the annual Environmental Performance Index (EPI), and scoping the potential to create a tool to monitor methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.
  • Advocacy to ensure changes to relevant legislation, policy and regulation focus on environmental protection and recovery in the Niger Delta, and the strengthening of an independent environmental regulator for the industry.

Context

Communities across the Niger Delta have seen little benefit from the huge amount of oil wealth generated by the region. Instead, impacted communities – those that are host to oil company operations and infrastructure – have borne the brunt of the negative impacts of the industry and the failure to properly govern and manage the region’s natural resources. The latter also impacts communities across the region (regardless of host status) as the political and economic dynamics created by the existence of the industry and weak governance have become pervasive. The negative impacts experienced by communities include: limited access to quality services and infrastructure; high levels of unemployment; highly polluted natural environment due to oil spills and gas flares; high levels of daily conflicts and insecurity; lack of access to justice and a lack of meaningful participation or influence in government decision-making processes.

Ultimately, the region needs to prepare for a clean energy future and diversified economy. However, for the immediate situation to change, government needs to improve how it manages its natural resources and regulates the industry, as well as improving its engagement with, and response to, the needs of impacted communities; the oil and gas industry needs to operate to best practice standards, including in its engagements with impacted communities; and communities need to be able to represent their concerns, to influence decision-making, and hold the industry and government to account, while also taking responsibility as active citizens for supporting solutions to the complex challenges the region faces.

 

 

Published: 12.09.2022

Project resources

 

Report: 2020 Nigerian oil industry environmental performance index

Report: 2020 Nigerian oil industry environmental performance index

Overview The Environmental Performance Index analyses annual emissions by oil-producing companies operating in the Niger Delta, the oil and gas-producing region ...
Report: 2019 Nigerian oil industry environmental performance index

Report: 2019 Nigerian oil industry environmental performance index

Overview The Environmental Performance Index analyses annual emissions by oil producing companies operating in the Niger Delta, the oil and ...
Community Monitoring and Advocacy Groups: handbook

Community Monitoring and Advocacy Groups: handbook

What are Community Monitoring and Advocacy Groups (CMAGs)? Each CMAG documents and campaigns around the development priorities of its local ...
Report: 2018 Nigerian oil industry environmental performance index

Report: 2018 Nigerian oil industry environmental performance index

Summary This report provides a comparative assessment of the environmental performance of 43 oil companies operating in Nigeria in 2018 ...
Brief: 2018 Nigerian oil industry environmental performance index

Brief: 2018 Nigerian oil industry environmental performance index

Summary This report provides a comparative assessment of the environmental performance of 43 oil companies operating in Nigeria in 2018 ...
Oil Spill Monitor

Oil Spill Monitor

The Nigerian Oil Spill Monitor gives public access to current official data on oil spills collected by the National Oil ...
Gas Flare Tracker

Gas Flare Tracker

When crude oil is extracted from onshore and offshore oil wells it brings with it raw natural gas to the ...

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