Insecurity, Livelihoods, and Welfare in Northern Nigeria

July 7, 2026 CPAN

Nigeria faces high and rising poverty. In 2023, 56.2 per cent of the population (125.8 million people) lived below the national poverty line and 41.8 per cent lived on less than $3 per day (World Bank 2025). Multidimensional poverty affected 63 per cent of the population in 2022 (NBS 2022), while 14–15 million people are expected to require humanitarian assistance between October 2025 and May 2026, especially in the North East and parts of the North West (FEWS NET 2025). Poverty is concentrated in Northern Nigeria, particularly in areas affected by insecurity. In 2024 alone, conflict caused 11,678 deaths, with 63.6 per cent occurring in four states: Borno, Zamfara, Katsina, and Benue (analysis of ACLED 2025).

Conflict and poverty reinforce each other. Violence undermines livelihoods, agricultural production, and markets, while diverting state resources and destroying assets. At the same time, poverty and limited livelihood opportunities can increase vulnerability to recruitment by armed groups and predatory actors including political elites who actively recruit, finance, and organise violence (Sakor et al. 2025; Jones and Kotarska 2025).

This study aims to strengthen localised understanding of the links between regional insecurity, livelihoods, and welfare outcomes in Northern Nigeria. It is distinguished from other work on crises and poverty (e.g. Diwakar et al. 2025) especially through its focus on conflict dynamics disaggregated by type of violence (Boko Haram in the North East (NE), banditry especially in the North West (NW) though also in other regions, and farmer-herder conflicts in the North Central (NC) region), consideration of welfare in terms of monetary/multidimensional poverty and food insecurity, concentrated analysis in the North, and use of newly available nationally-representative household survey data in Nigeria. Coupling this household survey data analysis with reanalysis of recent qualitative data collected in a subset of Nigeria’s Northern states, the study seeks to inform humanitarian and development programming and provide policy recommendations for reducing poverty, building resilience, and interrupting the poverty-conflict relationship in conflict-affected Northern states. This paper asks:

1. What is the bidirectional relationship between the dynamics of insecurity and household welfare in Northern Nigeria?

2. What are key drivers of monetary welfare despite conflict in the North, with a focus on livelihoods and their enabling conditions?

3. How do these drivers vary by area of residence, gender, and age in Northern Nigeria?

Written by Vidya Diwakar, Judith-Ann Walker, Kareem Abdulrasaq

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Empowered Worldviews: Assessing the persistence of psychosocial intervention effects in Zambia

February 16, 2024 CPAN

Evidence on the persistence of psychosocial outcomes of interventions over the medium and long term, and in the face of shocks and stressors, is limited. We examined the extent to which empowerment associated with a psychosocial, faith-based approach, Empowered Worldview (EWV) persisted 3–5 years post-delivery of the intervention in Zambia among smallholder farmers. The EWV intervention in Zambia was delivered as part of THRIVE, an integrated livelihoods programme. We followed a previous study to disaggregate individual-level empowerment associated with EWV into three domains: internal (which relates to ‘power within’), localised (typically participation and access), and structural (e.g. institutional, environmental, and social structures).

To explore the persistence of EWV effects on empowerment, we used mixed methods and longitudinal data collected in 2020 and 2023, which were the midline and endline points of the THRIVE programme. Empirically, we used descriptive and regression analysis to compare internal and localised empowerment levels between the survey rounds (2020 and 2023) across study groups – including groups that received EWV before and after 2020 – and to the control group. We also re-interviewed a subset of EWV participants interviewed in 2020 to understand how empowerment has changed at the individual level over time.

The results show levels of internal empowerment associated with the EWV intervention persisted between the midline and endline surveys, especially when combined with THRIVE livelihood interventions. At the midline, 80.0 per cent of THRIVE with EWV participants were empowered, compared to 82.3 per cent at the endline. In contrast, 72.6 per cent and 73.07 per cent of the control sample participants were empowered at the midline and the endline, respectively. Quantitative results further show that localised empowerment significantly improved between survey rounds among participants who received EWV training and is positively associated with internal empowerment, consistent with literature that suggests localised enablers (supporting social environments) are crucial to sustaining internal empowerment. The qualitative data shows that persistent internal and localised empowerment was observed mostly among households in the non-poor wellbeing category, suggesting that additional interventions are needed to reach the poorest participants. Results also show internal and localised empowerment are positively associated with indicators of household resilience. We conclude the paper with recommendations for programming.

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For further insights on the first phase of the study, click here

The role of behaviour-change programming on mindsets and livelihoods

February 17, 2021 CPAN

The psychosocial dimensions of poverty have long been recognised, but psychosocial factors are rarely included in development frameworks as diagnostics or as interventions to address poverty. Religion and/or faith is also broadly recognized as having the potential to affect mindsets and constraints to economic wellbeing, but faith dimensions are rarely included in poverty interventions. This is consistent with gaps in the wider literature on faith in development and in empirical evidence on faith in development programming. A review of the literature indicates that a lack of established faith and economic development frameworks might contribute to this evidence gap. Faith and psychological attributes are also difficult to measure, likely contributing to the gap in evidence-based faith-oriented models.

CPAN partnered with World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, to conduct an evaluation of the efficacy of its faith-based approach called Empowered Worldview (EWV). The EWV approach seeks to address ‘dependency mindsets and promote empowerment among smallholder farmers living in poverty’. We conducted a literature review to inform a conceptual framework of the potential pathways of change and outcome measures of an EWV intervention in livelihoods improvement programming. We also empirically tested the framework in Zambia on World Vision’s THRIVE programme (Transforming Household Resilience in Vulnerable Environments). THRIVE is an integrated livelihoods programme that includes EWV as a core approach—in addition to savings for transformation, natural resource management, farming as a Business, disaster risk reduction and microfinance interventions.

Three hypotheses tested in the study:

1. Households trained in EWV are more likely to have positive mindsets (are empowered) than households not trained in EWV with regards to hope, identity, self-esteem and aspirations of economic/social well-being.

2. EWV interventions positively influence a household’s response to livelihood options, agency, and valuable social relationships leading to economic empowerment.

3. EWV interventions have a positive, statistically significant effect on livelihoods (THRIVE) results, including subjective well-being, income change, resilience, and child well-being.

Authors: Amanda Lenhardt, Vidya Diwakar, Joseph Simbaya, Emmanuel Tumusiime

Download the report here.

Download the technical brief here.

This project has been commissioned and is funded by World Vision.