Description
The literature exploring development NGOs and the solutions they provide to problems in locations where governments are unable to reach or are inadequately resourced to provide aid is replete. In Nigeria, there are about 500 NGOs registered under the EU/UN Spotlight Initiative project on ending violence against women and girls that provide services to internally displaced women experiencing gender-based violence (GBV). Whilst there is an acceptable reporting template detailing the type of services they provide to these women, what we know far less is whether the framing of the problems and the posited service solutions in these templates reflect the actual needs of the internally displaced women. This curiosity stems from the fact that, over the years, NGOs have presented themselves as saviours without any accountability structures to the people in whose stead they raise fund. This paper asks: To what extent does the framing of the problems and the posited solutions reflect the muted voices of the internally displaced women in Nigeria? In what ways do international studies continue to doubly marginalise the already muted voices in the research of internally displaced people in insurgency countries and other natural emergency-prone countries? This paper addresses this question using the solicited data from service reports within the framework of the EU/ UN Spotlight Initiative submitted by the partnering NGOs. It also employs extant data from international studies on this issue. It makes the case that marginalised, particularly internally displaced women and girls, can only lead in the conceptualization of their problems and the solutions they find acceptable if deliberate attempts and spaces are made for the inclusion of their voices in international organisation solution templates and, to an extent, in international studies.
