Nigeria

Year-end Overview

Operational environment 

Nigeria continues to grapple with a protracted humanitarian crisis in the North-East, an ongoing conflict that will likely persist in 2021, causing further internal displacement and refugee movements. The high level of violence and insecurity prevent UNHCR from accessing important hosting areas, and with the situation showing no signs of abating, humanitarian responses will continue to be hampered in 2021. Furthermore, the South-East of the country continues hosts more than 60,000 Cameroonian refugees who have fled violence in the North-West and South-West regions of Cameroon, where the conflict also shows no sign of abating.
 
In this challenging context, UNHCR is working with the Government of Nigeria to help ensure a favorable protection environment and to implement the commitments made at the 2019 Global Refugee Forum, including the allocation of farm lands to refugees to enhance their self-reliance and their inclusion in national services such as health, education and national development plans, in line with the principles of the Global Compact on Refugees. 
 
UNHCR closely coordinates with a wide range of partners including the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and IDPs, the National Commission, the Nigerian Immigration Service and the State Government authorities, as well as the members of the UN Country Team and other humanitarian and development actors to advocate for refugees and displaced populations inclusion and to ensure that their needs are addressed comprehensively. UNHCR will also continue to invest in private sector partnerships, with work already underway to seek new partnerships in the area of Islamic philanthropy in 2021.
 
The COVID-19 pandemic had a severe impact on the livelihoods of refugees and IDPs, exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and exposing them to heightened protection risks, including incidences of gender-based violence and rising poverty levels, adversely impacting the protection environment.
 
To address this challenging situation, UNHCR will sustain its efforts towards enhanced community-based protection to reach the most vulnerable with water, sanitation and hygiene services, livelihood opportunities, cash assistance, health care, gender-based violence prevention and response services, and child protection to ensure that basic needs are met. 

Key priorities 

• COVID-19 activities will be mainstreamed under national programmes for health, education and water, sanitation and hygiene, as part of UNHCR’s effort to ensure continuity of assistance while mitigating contamination risks among people of concern. 
• UNHCR will target 80,000 IDPs with vulnerability screening to provide disaggregated data and reliable information on the most pressing protection issues and to facilitate targeted assistance. This exercise will be implemented at household level using proGres v4.
• UNHCR will continue to support IDPs with legal assistance by promoting a strategic response to their legal needs through advocacy, coordination, capacity-building and partnership with national and international agencies.
• UNHCR will aim to reduce the risks of gender-based violence and improve the quality of the response through enhanced community-based prevention and response and survivor-centered protection.
• UNHCR will enhance its shelter interventions to ensure that all returnees live in adequate dwellings and will provide 13,000 households with cash assistance and tool kits to improve and maintain their shelters.
• UNHCR will strengthen its livelihoods interventions in areas where the operational environment allows for sustainable economic activities and implement cash-based interventions where security conditions are not conducive for long-term investments, in line with the UNHCR Livelihoods and Economic Inclusion Strategy (2019-2023), the Nigerian Economic Recovery Plan, and the Nigeria 2019-2021 Humanitarian Response Strategy. In order to ensure that 60% of affected populations between 18 and 59 years old earn at least minimum wages for more than six month per year, UNHCR will provide 15,000 people of concern and host community members with production kits or inputs for livelihood activities, 10,000 with business training and 15,000 persons at heightened risk with cash assistance.