Breaking the Conflict–Poverty Cycle: Diversification amid Multiple Crises in Northern Nigeria

Insecurity in Northern Nigeria has heterogeneous impacts on livelihoods and welfare, which operate through displacement, asset loss, constrained economic activity, and disrupted markets. Despite these constraints, livelihood diversification and enabling factors such as asset accumulation, education, financial inclusion, and market and social connectivity play a key role in sustaining welfare and enabling poverty escapes even in insecure settings. This brief summarises mixed methods evidence on the relationship between insecurity (with a focus on Boko Haram violence, banditry, and farmer-herder conflicts), livelihoods and welfare in Northern Nigeria. It points to the importance of multi-sectoral support to diversification alongside holistic consideration of multiple crises in Nigeria’s northern regions.

Key messages

• Different forms of insecurity have distinct effects on livelihoods and welfare in Northern Nigeria, with Boko Haram violence and banditry showing stronger negative associations than farmer–herder conflicts and impacts varying across the welfare distribution.

• Despite insecurity, livelihood diversification and enabling conditions such as asset accumulation, education, financial inclusion, and market and social connectivity are key to sustaining welfare and protecting against poverty.

• Microenterprise recovery is a critical but under-supported pathway for resilience in crisis-affected areas where households commonly rely on diversified livelihoods.

• Agricultural vulnerability in fragile contexts is shaped by climate and conflict risks, requiring broad investments in resilience, including through anticipatory action and livestock support for pastoralists and smallholder farmers.

• Stronger alignment between security, humanitarian, and social protection systems building on the Federal Government’s ‘One Humanitarian – One Poverty Response System’ framework is essential for more coherent and effective responses in conflict affected regions.

Authored by Vidya Diwakar, Kareem Abdulrasaq, Judith-Ann Walker, Andrew Shepherd

Insecurity, Livelihoods, and Welfare in Northern Nigeria

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?

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

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Growth from Below: Poverty Reduction beyond Social Protection in Nigeria

BASIC Research Policy Briefing 11 - Published on 13 October 2025

Agriculture and informal economies provide essential livelihoods in Nigeria, but they face challenges such as climate shocks, conflict, low investment, and financial exclusion. Resilience strategies include diversification, microfinance access and entrepreneurial ventures, but policy support is limited, particularly for informal activities. Government focus needs to shift from taxation to productive support, to enhance financial inclusion, strengthen social protection, and empower women through asset ownership and business development. Sustainable poverty reduction requires adaptive policies that integrate economic stability, peacebuilding, infrastructure, and social resilience.

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Cite this publication

Abdulrasaq, K. and Shepherd, A. (2025) 'Growth from Below: Poverty Reduction beyond Social Protection in Nigeria', BASIC Research Policy Briefing 11, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, DOI: 10.19088/BASIC.2025.027

Social Assistance and Poverty Reduction Amidst Multiple Crises

BASIC Research Policy Briefing 9 - Published on 11 September 2025

BASIC Research in Borno, Nigeria, demonstrates that the provision of social assistance can help build the capacity to escape poverty, even in crises. Studies show that social assistance improves poor people’s consumption levels, human capital formation and economic growth from below. Nigeria has the foundational pieces of social assistance in place (draft policy, programme, social registry) and could expand social assistance coverage rapidly to poor and vulnerable populations affected by polycrises. However, there is a lack of trust in social assistance and in government. Commitment to carrying out regular impact evaluations would improve this evidence base.

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Cite this publication

Shepherd, A. et al. (2025) 'Social Assistance and Poverty Reduction Amidst Multiple Crises', BASIC Research Policy Briefing 9, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, DOI: 10.19088/BASIC.2025.017

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Political Perspectives of Social Assistance Amidst Economic Shocks in Nigeria

BASIC Research Briefing 7 - Published on 31 October 2025

Economic shocks represent an important dimension of protracted crises characterised by conflict and climate-related extremes. This note examines views of different actors in Nigeria on whether and how social assistance should be used to help households negatively affected by these shocks. It identifies the political outlook of those who view social assistance as: 1) A fundamental right espoused in the social contract focused on marginalised groups; 2) A right but focused on technocratic aspects of delivery; 3) A tool to maintain financial discipline, applied to respond to crises when systems fail; and 4) A means of strengthening political influence. The power of groups with these perspectives offers insights about the underlying constraints of social assistance.

Cite this publication

Abdulrasaq, K.; Walker, J.-A.; Ukpai, S. and Diwakar, V. (2025) ‘Political Perspectives of Social Assistance Amidst Economic Shocks in Nigeria’, BASIC Research Research Briefing 7, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, DOI: 10.19088/IDS.2025.043

Poverty Dynamics and Social ‍Assistance Amidst Intersecting Crises in Nigeria

This paper investigates the role of crises (e.g. armed conflict, displacement, climate-related disasters, Covid‑19, and economic crises) in driving negative poverty trajectories in Nigeria, alongside the extent to which social assistance may be fit for purpose to respond to intersecting crises. The paper adopts a mixed-methods approach, bringing together analysis of quantitative survey data from 2010 to 2023, with qualitative data collected in six states across the country’s six geopolitical zones in 2023. Study findings point to intersecting crises driving both the acuteness of chronic poverty as well as new instances of impoverishment that are becoming sustained. Social assistance – albeit constrained by limited coverage – plays an important role by supporting promotive and protective means of coping during crises. Based on the study findings, policy recommendations include expanding social assistance coverage, strengthening conflict resolution and peace-building, promoting equity-centred economic policy responses, and addressing underlying structural challenges.

Click here to read the full paper

Social Assistance and Coping With Crises in Borno, Nigeria

This paper examines the relationship between social assistance, violent conflict, and intersecting crises, and considers how social assistance can help offset erosive forms of coping that could otherwise drive poverty and food insecurity.

To investigate these issues, the study draws on newly collected household data covering 1,000 survey respondents in 2023 from the Konduga and Maiduguri Municipal Council local government areas in Borno, Nigeria. Borno has been an epicentre for violence over the past 15 years, and has experienced a range of intersecting crises.

Study findings indicate that 43 per cent of households experienced disruptions to income or agriculture, or asset loss, either due to conflict, flooding, or drought. Of these households, 41 per cent reported that more than half of their income source was lost. Despite the negative effects of crises, only 1 in 10 households received social assistance in the year preceding the survey, mainly through non-governmental organisations. This indicates that social assistance is simply not getting through to the people who need it.

Perhaps as a result, households are increasingly drawing on negative and even erosive forms of coping – for example, by being less able to save, less able to make investments, and increasing reliance on loans that together could drive downward mobility. The paper concludes with broad-brush implications for social assistance programmes to become more effective amidst violence and climate-related disasters.

The paper is authored by Vidya Diwakar, Adedeji Peter Adeniran, Emmanuel Nwosu, Fidelis Obaniyi, Chisom Udora

Click here to read the paper

Poverty dynamics and social protection in Nigeria

Nigeria has a large and growing share of people living in poverty. Roughly 40.1% of its population live below the national poverty line, while a similar share (46.4%) are multidimensionally poor based on deprivations in education, health, and living standards. Covid19 has amplified these concerns, forecasted by the World Bank to push an estimated additional 10 million Nigerians into extreme poverty by 2022.

This study investigates key drivers associated with descents into and exits from relative monetary poverty across zones of Nigeria, the ways in which COVID-19 pandemic are likely to impact these dynamics, and implications for the design of social protection programmes and policy in Nigeria. It analyses: 1) the Nigeria General Household Survey Panel from 2010/11-2015/16, 2) nine rounds of the Covid19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey 2020-2021, 3) the Nigeria Living Standards Survey 2018/19, and 4) a series of key informant interviews with social protection stakeholders in 2021. The results of the study point to a combination of asset and livelihood-based enablers for households to sustain poverty escapes, and draw out implications for the design of social protection in Nigeria in the time ahead.

Read the full report here

Read the briefing note here

Authors: Vidya Diwakar and Adeniran Adedeji

The research is funded through FCDO and commissioned by Save the Children International (Nigeria) and Action Against Hunger through the Child Development Grant Programme.