Report: Why Humanitarian Response in North-west is Absent

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja 

A new report has revealed that the framing of banditry in the North-west has diminished any appetite to expand humanitarian aid to the region by the international non-governmental organisations and other actors.

It said while the North-east has had a major humanitarian response spanning more than a decade, the humanitarian efforts in the North-west have been almost entirely absent.

The report noted that the North-east is commonly framed as an ideologically driven insurgency of Islamic extremism, a compelling narrative of an understandable threat that helped galvanise domestic and international attention, including an international humanitarian response. 

The report carried out by NEEM Foundation in support of ODI and Humanitarian Policy Group title: ‘Aid Beyond Politics and According to Need—Overcoming Disparities in Human Responses in Nigeria’, was launched yesterday in Abuja.

Research Fellow at the Humanitarian Policy Group and co-author of the new study, John Bryant, said the stark differences are primarily a consequence of how respective conflicts are understood in both regions by the state and humanitarian actors. 

He said: “In contrast, the framing of the conflict in the North-west has worked to effectively depoliticise and deprioritise the region’s crisis. 

“State and international actors commonly describe the crisis as one of ‘endemic banditry’ or ‘lawlessness’ driven fundamentally by underdevelopment. Both of these characterisations are incomplete and simplistic, but have shaped the perceptions of donors and other actors that in turn drive discrepancies. 

“The humanitarian response in North-east Nigeria over the past decade has also played a role in deepening regional disparities in the country. The humanitarian presence there has been broadly assessed as costly, constrained by government controls and limited in scope and effectiveness. 

“Its ‘entrenched’ response has fed a sense of inertia on the part of the international system and has diminished any appetite to expand already challenging humanitarian programmes to another region.”

Bryant added that underfunded state-level government structures also play a part in keeping the disparities as they are, describing it as symptoms of neglect within a strong, middle-income state. 

He noted: “Neither domestic or international actors have challenged the framings of the crisis, or their responses, in either region. 

“Nigeria’s disparities raise pressing questions around humanitarian prioritisation and what counts as a humanitarian crisis, amidst concerns of ‘diluting’ limited assistance and services. 

“Such issues are now especially pertinent for the global humanitarian system: for the first time, falling donor budgets have led to relief providers targeting fewer people in their humanitarian appeals.”

Bryant stressed that it was vital for responders including the humanitarian sector and Nigerian government to consider needs more and recalibrate the response accordingly. 

“Yet the answer to the crisis in the North-west cannot and should not be a mirror image of the North-east response,” he said.