Developing an Intersectional Violence Prevention Framework for Northern Nigerian Contexts

Violence prevention programming in Northern Nigeria must navigate the specific intersections of gender, religion, ethnicity, displacement, and economic marginalisation that shape vulnerability and perpetration in ways that generic frameworks fail to capture. This study develops an Intersectional Violence Prevention Framework (IVPF) for Northern Nigerian contexts, grounded in evidence from Borno, Kano, and Kaduna States. A transformative participatory paradigm underpins a multi-phase design: community-based participatory research with 200 women and men across conflict-affected and stable communities, analysis of 30 existing violence prevention programme evaluations, 50 expert interviews, and framework co-development workshops. Intersectionality theory, social-ecological systems theory, and feminist peace and security frameworks guided framework construction. Findings reveal that violence prevention programmes in Northern Nigeria frequently operate on single-issue models (GBV only, conflict only, or child marriage only) that miss the compounded and interactive vulnerability pathways most characteristic of Northern Nigerian contexts. Security sector engagement without gender sensitivity amplifies rather than reduces women's risk of violence in conflict-affected settings. The resulting IVPF provides a multi-level, intersectionally-grounded model for violence prevention that incorporates individual, relationship, community, and structural intervention levels, with contextualised guidance for Northern Nigerian implementation. Keywords: violence prevention, intersectionality, Northern Nigeria, framework, gender