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 Yomi Oruwari is a professor of Architecture at The Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Her areas of research interest include gender and development, especially studies of livelihoods directed at upliftment of the households in the Niger Delta Region (NDR) of Nigeria. She has been a consultant and friend to the Centre for Advanced Social Studies, Nigeria (CASS), Port Harcourt, Nigeria for many years. She is currently a member of the team that just concluded a sponsored study on Improving Public Sector Oil Derived Resource Flows and Utilization in the NDR. The project was initiated and coordinated by CASS.
Her research over the past 25 years has led her to conclude that conflict that leads to violence in the NDR will be considerably minimized only if development is effectively directed at the upliftment of the households in the region. She also believes that an all-out effort must focus on good governance in order to achieve sustainable development. Poverty is not the cause of environmental degradation but an effect of it. Thus, poverty alleviation and environmental protection must be tackled in tandem and not in isolation. Good governance necessarily includes state government, the judiciary, corporate organizations, citizens’ groups and NGOs working together to achieve sustainable development. This is an uphill task.
Prof. Oruwari is interested in exploring the challenges of social exclusion of disadvantaged groups from the economic and social environment of the NDR. This emerged as a major concern from the study on resource flows in the region. She hopes that her interaction with colleagues at the Institute of International Studies, University of California at Berkeley will open up relationships that will assist her research and advocacy work in the NDR. |
