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Nigeria

No space to live: The consequences of congestion at IDP sites in North-East Nigeria (Position Paper, December 2018)

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More than 600,000 people are staying in highly congested displacement camps across North-East Nigeria. Consequences include lack of access to basic services, aid dependency, cyclical cholera outbreaks, rampant fires and deep protection concerns.

Obliged to take steps

The Sphere Handbook’s Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Responsei requires at least 45 square meters of usable surface area per person in displacement camps, or 30 square meters per person if basic services, such as schools, gardens and hospitals are accessible outside the settlement. If this area cannot be secured, steps must be taken “to address the consequences of higher-density occupation”ii.

According to recent figures, 604,000 people, or more than a third of the total displaced population in North-East Nigeria, are staying in formal or informal settlements with a congestion of people far exceeding this minimum standardiii. Many camps are characterised as highly congested, meaning that surface area available per person is less than 15 square meters. 160,000 people are living on as little as 5 square meters per person.

There is an acute need to decongest. At the same time, the detrimental effects of limited living space must be responded to. A study conducted on the effects of high-density occupation among Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh concludes that: “[b]esides the aggravating circumstances of topography and climate, refugees living in close proximity are at heightened risk of communicable diseases, fires, community tensions, and domestic and sexual violence”iv. The level of congestion is the same in North-East Nigeria.

Knowing this, it is worrying that Nigeria’s Humanitarian Response Plan is only 15% met for Emergency Shelter so far in 2018v. The equivalent for Sanitation and Hygiene is 20.3%, and Livelihood 3.2%. While half a million people are living in severely congested sites, there is a tendency that lifesaving infrastructure is not provided – due in part to the very same problem: There is not enough space to build the critical infrastructure needed.