Objective & Methodology
The October 2020 Essential Needs Analysis (ENA) for northeast Nigeria – published by the World Food
Programme, with support from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), National Population Commission
(NPoPC), Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET)
and NGO partners – examines the essential needs of populations affected by the complex emergency in
northeast Nigeria. The assessment has the following objectives:
1) Provide a comparative analysis of demographic, geographic and socio-economic
characteristics of food insecure households, including unmet essential needs;
2) Provide update on the food security and other vulnerability outcomes of the conflict affected
population in northeast Nigeria; and
3) Analyse impact of COVID-19 pandemic on affected populations.
The ENA uses a quantitative household survey covering 12,908 households in Borno, Yobe and
Adamawa states, with data collected by experienced enumerators from the NBS, NPoPC, and NGO
partners. The assessment uses an LGA level sampling approach in areas with crisis or emergency
phases (Phases 3 and 4) based on the June 2020 Cadre Harmonise (CH), with domain level sampling in
crisis phase LGAs in Yobe and Adamawa.
In addition to food security outcome indicators and household characteristics, the ENA leverages crosssectoral
indicators representing overall well-being or ability (Economic capacity to meet essential needs,
multidimensional deprivation, livelihood coping strategies, perceived needs) to understand how
households meet their essential needs and identify unmet needs.

Key Results

Food Consumption has worsened compared to previous years, with poor and borderline food consumption (reported by 44 percent of households) nearly as high as the peak of the crisis;
Most households do not have enough economic capacity to meet essential needs, with 60 percent the population being highly vulnerable;
Because households do not have enough economic capacity, debt and use of coping strategies has surged, with accessing food being the primary reason. Use of emergency coping strategies surged to 27 percent in 2020 from 12 percent in 2019;
While the proportion of households incurring debt (44 percent of all households) and reasons for incurring debt have remain largely unchanged compared to last year (70 percent of debt-incurring households mention accessing food as the main reason), the median debt amount has increased by 66 percent, from 6000 Nigerian naira (NGN) to 10,000 NGN;
56.5 percent of households are considered multidimensionally deprived based on an index which measures nonmonetary aspects of wellbeing and household-level poverty, based on deprivation in six essential needs dimensions: food, health, education, shelter, WASH and safety.
The three forms of vulnerability mostly do not occur individually. For 26 percent of all the respondents there is an overlap between an economic capacity below MEB, multidimensional poverty and poor and borderline food consumption score.
In addition to food security, access to income, money or resources is perceived as being of most concern, by nearly 70 percent of all surveyed households. Compared to other sectoral needs, 2020 saw a sharp rise in households reporting serious unmet concerns related to health (47 percent of households in 2020 compared to 31 percent in 2019) and safety (25 percent of households in 2020, 16 percent in 2019).
Lack of capital, rising prices and eroding purchasing power – already precarious but further exacerbated by COVID-19 – are main constraints to sustaining livelihoods
64 percent of people reported a negative income impact from COVID-19. These include 33 percent who either saw complete loss of incomes or change in income source and are thus more likely to have poor food consumption or engage in emergency coping strategies.
 Returnees, IDPs in camps are most vulnerable groups. Forty-one percent of returnees and IDPs in camp simultaneously have economic capacity below MEB, poor and borderline food consumption and are multidimensionally poor. Socioeconomic determinants of vulnerability include households with precarious income sources such as natural resources, petty trade, and daily wage labour; households where women are the sole earners or host IDPs, and households where heads are headed by women or have no education.

Recommendations

Vulnerability profiling and targeting: In addition to prioritising returnees and IDPs living in camps, targeting within host communities should include households hosting IDPs or having chronically ill members, or having precarious sources of income such as daily wage labour or relying on begging, or household heads that are female or have no education;
Multisectoral programming for improved nutrition outcomes: With high overlaps between monetary poor and multidimensional poor – especially with increasing concerns in WASH and health sector, there is a need to address critical services in these sectors to further improve overall wellbeing and prevent households from having to make hard choices when prioritizing needs;
Cash as the preferred transfer modality : Given that over 95 percent of households have physical access to markets, rely on markets to meet most of their food needs, especially for foods of high nutrition value, and report poor purchasing power, cash is the most preferred transfer modality for households to meet their essential needs – except for some hard to reach areas, such as Mobbar, Borno state.

Transfer values: Given that 42 percent of households have expenditures below the SMEB (food-only MEB), restricting cash transfer values to monetary values of food baskets will alleviate food insecurity in the short-term but is unlikely to improve overall wellbeing i.e. meeting all essential needs in a sustained matter. Setting of transfer values should thus consider these outcomes, in addition to reach and coverage of cash transfer programmes.  The assessment shows that even IDPs, who have been receiving humanitarian assistance, can hardly satisfy their needs with the transfer values and entitlements received, and even assistance does not prevent them from adopting ever more severe coping mechanisms.