Presently, the organization is undertaking the following key projects:
Project to Operationalize the Right to Adequate Housing II
This project aims to heighten housing rights awareness, while building the capacity of the residents of slums and other local communities in Nigeria to become pro-active in the defense of their right to housing. Among other things, the project explores points of intersection between rights-based and development-based approaches to the expansion of access to housing, and seeks to integrate rights-based interventions with creative development-oriented models of community action as part of a coherent strategy for addressing the sordid state of housing in Nigeria.
Project to Reinvent Democratic Engagement in the Niger Delta
The project seeks to explore and utilize an integrated approach to expand opportunities for democratic engagement towards the restoration of peace, rule of law, respect for human rights and development in the region. The project's main thrust is to build an inclusive working group of motivated and committed key actors within and beyond region to serve as Emissaries of the Niger Delta (END). This group, to be comprised of community representatives, high level government and legislative officials, oil companies' representative, human rights and development leaders, reputable journalist, religious leaders and representative of women's organizations, will be drawn from around Nigeria. The group's main goal is to undertake a working assessment of the growing violent conflict in the region, and attempt to establish common ground around specific issues, challenges, opportunities as well as develop a work plan for expanding democratic engagement in search of fair and sustainable solutions to the complex and festering conflict in the Niger Delta.
In the long term, the project will inter alia, increase the capacity of local community leaders representatives to communicate and negotiate with government and non-state actors in the search for democratic solutions as a means to creating a new vision and hope for negotiated solutions to the conflict. It will also implement programs and activities to help restore confidence, and promote intra and inter community solidarity and cohesion.
Nigeria Social Housing Initiative II (NSHI)
Proceeding upon a rights-based platform, SERAC’s Nigeria Social Housing Initiative (NSHI) undertakes integrated, innovative approaches towards target slum communities’ improvement of their housing conditions and the social, economic and environmental functioning of their neighborhoods. In the short term, the project seeks to build the capacity of the target populations to expand their skills base, boost their economic and entrepreneurial capacity, encourage savings and facilitate the development of a strong and participatory housing cooperative society. In full term, NSHI seeks to undertake improvement of the living and housing conditions in Ijora Badia and Maroko (through physical and structural renovation of existing houses and the construction of new houses for a specific number of families.)
Legal Action and Empowerment Project (LEAP)
The Project's main goal is to increase the legal recognition and enforcement of economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights in Nigeria. It also seeks to:
- Empower the poor to use the ESC rights framework to increase their control and determination of their lives;
- Expand access to effective remedy through the provision of free legal advocacy and legal support to individuals, groups and communities seeking redress for the violations of their ESC rights. It will also continue to initiate the public-interest lawsuits that promote wider enjoyment of ESC rights;
- Explore, refine and utilize domestic and comparative techniques and approaches for the successful litigation of ESC rights. It will also identify and systematize the use of administrative and other alternative dispute resolution mechanisms for achieving the realization of those rights;
- Promote access of the poor to land and other resources on the basis of equality and non discrimination; and
- Upscale the use of regional and international resources mechanisms to hold Nigeria accountable to observe its binding human rights obligations.
Policy Advocacy and Institutional Development Project (PAID)
The project aims to explore and utilize innovative ways to extend and integrate poor and marginalized populations' ideas, knowledge, concerns, goals and priorities into government's social and economic policy and program decision-making and implementation processes. Through action-oriented research, reflexive education, advocacy, best practice modeling, dialogue and strategic engagement, the project seeks to increase the prospects for purposeful, responsive, inclusive and participatory governance in Nigeria.
Using the rights to health, adequate housing, and the right to benefit from scientific and technological advancement (stable access to electricity) as focal points, the project will introduce initiatives that simultaneously employ strategies of transformative rights and citizenship to inspire and energize policy makers and target groups to develop and implement policies and programs that can yield outcomes that increase the capabilities, freedom and living standards of poor and vulnerable populations.
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