Through Chevron’s Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMOU), some communities in the Niger Delta are celebrating 9 years of consistent development and capacity building by Chevron Nigeria Limited. The GMOU was signed with 8 communities in 2005 and has seen almost a decade of empowerment of member communities in 5 states. According to community leaders, over 600,000 people in about 400 communities have benefited from this initiative.

The GMoU was evolved to stimulate sustainable development of communities around Chevron’s areas of operations, by trusting the process to community residents.

It involves the creation of development councils comprising mainly of community residents, while the Chevron, NGOs, representatives of state governments and government agencies like the Niger Delta Development Commission are supposed to provide the needed funding and capacity building support for the community-driven initiative.

Here’s a Channels TV report of Communities celebrating 9 years of capacity building by Chevron.