Multi-stakeholder engagement to examine Nigeria’s investment treaty exposure and equip civil society and media to track energy transition risks
Port Harcourt, Rivers State — September 11, 2026
Policy Alert, in partnership with SDN and ActionAid, with support from SOMO will convene a Multi-Stakeholder Roundtable on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism, Energy Transition and Investment Governance, followed by a Capacity Building Training for civil society organisations (CSOs) and media, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on September 15 2026 and September 16 2026 respectively.
The engagement will bring together policymakers, legislators, regulators, CSOs, and community representatives from across the Niger Delta to interrogate how ISDS provisions embedded in Nigeria’s Bilateral Investment Treaties, constrain the country’s regulatory autonomy and delay urgent action on environmental remediation and energy transition.
The Roundtable, will examine Nigeria’s legal and financial exposure under existing investment treaties, with a focus on Nigeria’s arbitration risk; and further interrogate how ongoing oil divestment in the Niger Delta raises questions of environmental liability and community accountability. The lived experiences and policy priorities of Niger Delta communities will directly inform the day’s discussions and recommendations.
Immediately following the Roundtable, Policy Alert will host a Capacity Building Training for CSOs and journalists designed to strengthen participants’ understanding of ISDS, energy transition risk, and investigative reporting techniques. The training will build directly on the Roundtable’s findings, equipping civil society and media to independently track, investigate, and report on investment governance decisions that affect their communities.
“For too long, ISDS has been treated as a technical clause buried in the fine print of investment treaties, far removed from the everyday realities of Niger Delta communities. But when a treaty signed decades ago can outweigh a community’s right to environmental remediation, or discourage a government from regulating in the public interest, it stops being a legal footnote and becomes a governance and climate justice issue. This roundtable is about bringing that conversation out of the fine print and into the open, where policymakers, communities, and civil society can shape it together,” said Tijah Bolton-Akpan, Executive Director, Policy Alert.
The two-part engagement forms part of a broader intervention by Policy Alert to reposition ISDS as a central governance, fiscal, and climate justice concern in Nigeria, and to generate policy-relevant evidence that bridges the gap between investment treaty obligations and their real-world implications for communities and climate outcomes.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Lucy Eyo,
Communication Officer,
08160640026
[email protected]
