Famine Early Warning Systems Network

Poor households will engage normally in petty trading and agricultural related labor work to earn income to access food. The stable or declining staple food prices in areas unaffected by conflict have favored poor households, increasing food access. Similarly, the onset of the growing season and availability of pastoral resources will lead to improved livestock body conditions and favorable prices. As a result, livestock-to-cereal terms of trade will increase food access and most poor households across the country will face no food insecurity (IPC Phase 1) through January 2020.

However, in localized areas, households affected by farmer/pastoralist conflict, armed banditry, kidnapping, and cattle rustling in the northwest and central parts of Nigeria and who remain displaced in Plateau, Benue, Taraba, Kaduna, and Adamawa states will face constraints to typical food access. In Zamfara and Katsina states, households worst affected by armed banditry and kidnapping are only able to meet their basic food needs and will be in Stressed (IPC Phase 2) through the end of the lean season in September 2019. Similarly, in parts of Taraba, Sokoto, Plateau, and Adamawa states, affected households who are unable to cultivate normally during the recent growing season will only be able to minimally meet their basic food needs during the lean season and will be in Stressed (IPC Phase 2) from August to September. In the above-mentioned areas, the expectation of Stressed (IPC Phase 2) is based on the likelihood that most conflict-affected households will still have access to a minimal level of income through casual labor and that with favorable terms of trade they will be able to purchase sufficient food at markets to meet their basic needs. However, given the loss of other food and income sources, they will face difficulty meeting some basic non-food needs.

In conflict-affected areas of the northeast, livelihoods for most households will remain heavily disrupted. Agricultural and other income-earning opportunities will remain restricted due to the direct impacts of the conflict and by the high levels of displacement. This is exacerbated by atypical market functioning and elevated staple prices. In many cases, households will remain highly dependent on humanitarian assistance to meet their basic food needs, particularly the IDPs in Greater Maiduguri area where they are most accessible to humanitarian actors and are expected to continue facing Stressed (IPC Phase 2!) outcomes through September 2019. Many of the communities outside of the IDP settlements and outside of the main urban centers in the northeast will likely remain in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) until the new harvest in October 2019, as they do not receive substantial humanitarian assistance and are using livelihood coping strategies, such as sales of productive assets, to access food. However, some LGAs that are further away from the epicenter of the conflict, particularly in Yobe state, should benefit from the harvest in October 2019 and see an improvement of their food security outcomes to Stressed (IPC Phase 2) conditions. Worst-affected areas, where there are highest restrictions on agriculture, other livelihoods activities, access to markets, and humanitarian assistance provision, are expected to face larger food consumption gaps and they will continue to face Emergency (IPC Phase 4) through September 2019, including Abadam, Marte, Kukawa, Nganzai, Guzamala and Kala Balge. Areas where populations are affected by significant losses of livelihoods activities and who remain inaccessible to humanitarian actors are likely facing similar or worse food security outcomes as neighboring, accessible areas. There remains a risk of Famine (IPC Phase 5) in these areas. Extreme levels of acute food insecurity, including Famine (IPC Phase 5), are possible in a worst-case scenario in which conflict significantly restricts humanitarian access and household movement.