By Fatima Shehu Imam
WE cannot make the same mistakes of assuming that the answers we derive for our most vulnerable members of society are the solutions they require; because, often, our own answers are reductive.
Last year, I visited one of the communities with a significant number of internally-displaced people, and noticed that the young boys and girls would trek several miles in search of water for their families. We decided to fix the problem and gifted the community with a borehole, but soon realised that they didn’t even want it! In a subsequent conversation with Aisha – one of the community members – we soon learned that sending their children such long distances presented the only opportunity they had to be intimate with their spouses – something that was increasingly difficult considering the cramped living conditions at the camp.
This experience emphasised the need to understand the people for whom we are developing solutions – of any kind. For IDPs – it is easy to fall into the trap of limiting the solutions required to reintegrate forcibly displaced people to those most basic human needs.
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In my work as the Director of the Network of Civil Society Organisations in Borno State, I have identified that it is meeting these needs that will empower internally displaced persons and set them on the road to self-sustainability; becoming contributing members of the economy – and eventually, self-actualisation.
Nigeria contributes to nearly four per cent of the world’s forcibly displaced population: Adamu and Aisha are some of the more than two million people that have been internally displaced within Nigeria. The violence inflicted by Boko Haram has been one of the singular most destabilising influences on Northern Nigeria; setting swathes of the region back several decades and exacerbating social divisions and distrust. Worse still, in the process of flight, forcibly displaced individuals have often lost capital and the tools they need to continue or restart their trade elsewhere. So, not only have these survivors lost their homes, their families, their chattel, and often their livelihood – they also have little opportunity to rebuild their lives and fall quickly into an insidious cycle of poverty.
The Nigerian humanitarian crisis, with its resultant development challenges, is entering its tenth year, but initiatives targeted at expanding access to substantive finance for forcibly displaced individuals remain few and far between. Compounding this is the fact that these most excluded of excluded individuals also lack access to traditional banking facilities and often are at the very bottom of Nigeria’s financially excluded pyramid. There is a clear and present danger posed by this neglect of the Aishas and Adamus of this country: a danger that will be felt heavily by us all, left untreated. We must begin to better appreciate the avoidable and often devastating consequences that can emerge from this cycle of poverty, alienation and even violence – and take steps to address it.
In doing so, however, it is important to make no assumptions about our internally displaced people. We must remember that they are not a homogenous group. Before their forcible displacement, they were farmers, business people, carpenters, fishermen and women; – their promise compromised by ideologies. We must also appreciate the humanitarian actors engaging in cash-based interventions in the region. Even as we do, we must keep sight of the limitations of the majority of these interventions. For the survivors of this forced indignity; freedom and independence also comes from the ability to securely store, transfer or receive funds needed to live a dignified life and manage the economic shocks that inevitably come with such protracted displacement within one’s own home country.
Vulnerable and displaced persons like Aisha need security and independence to take ownership of their own health, economic and development outcomes. For this to be at all possible, capital is required. Even if available, traditional means of accessing capital do not work for IDPs who have no collateral and often no identification or guarantors to satisfy the requirements of brick and mortar institutions. To that point, the evidence is clear: research from around the world indicates that digital financial services are particularly impactful in post-disaster contexts, by allowing forcibly displaced individuals receive and manage their money privately and quickly.
In the Philippines, for example, mobile money was vital in distributing financial aid following Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, and households with these savings accounts recovered faster after the typhoon. In Uganda, mobile network operators delivered fast, secure humanitarian cash transfers to the Bidi Bidi refugee settlement through mobile phones- resulting in savings on the logistics of humanitarian efforts, whilst giving displaced individuals greater dignity and choice. The evidence from Kenya is also positive; M-Pesa usage increased during violent periods e.g. the 2007 post-election violence and resulted in a reduced vulnerability to consumption shocks; whereas during a negative shock, the consumption of non-users fell. As you can probably guess, the reverse was the case for poor families who used M-Pesa.
The future is mobile. Mobile phones are transforming our very lives: evolving from mere connectivity tools, to facilitating financial and even health transactions. Many countries have already begun to move away from cash-aid to digital aid. In 2016, businesses, governments and donors in Uganda disbursed US$718 million to citizens via mobile money, incidentally resulting in significant investments in infrastructure and beneficiary skills training.
The promise of mobile money hardly lies in its ability to lower transaction costs for already connected individuals. Rather, it is in its very transformational potential to empower those most excluded Nigerians – not just the financially poor, but those who have been beaten down by war, famine and gender based violence. Beyond eliminating forced nomadism, and giving IDPs back their independence and dignity, mobile money is also a gateway into expanded financial services beyond just aid: insurance, savings, peer-to-peer remittances, pensions and, of course, credit.
Thinking about the future is unproductive if we are unprepared to implement the holistic approaches that make it more tenable. Every human being has a basic right to life, liberty, and to acquire and own property. For survivors of forced displacement in Nigeria, there is often no access to these basic rights.
The challenges of protecting our displaced people require new ways of thinking about the challenges they face. True empowerment is impossible if, at its core, the beneficiary is hindered from taking the steps needed to escape from the poverty into which they have been thrust.
The world is watching how well we achieve the reintegration of our own, into society. We must remember that there are no simple – or single answers. However, if all we do is meet physiological needs, then we have failed – and we can no longer afford to.
The successful reintegration of our IDPs into society will not be complete until they have been given access to the financial services that are perhaps the most critical enablers of inter-generational prosperity. As we strive to meet the development goals to leave no one behind, we are obligated to look beyond the band-aid solutions that we have implemented hitherto.
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