Have households’ livelihoods and food security rebounded from COVID-19 shocks in Nigeria? Results from a follow-up phone survey

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on households’ income, jobs, and food security have continued despite perceptible reductions in transmission and lifting of restrictive policy measures in several countries. To assess these effects on Nigerian households, we collected household data for the initial three months after the outbreak of the pandemic in Nigeria. To track the changes since the first survey, we conducted a follow-up phone survey with the same households a year later. We undertook a comparative analysis between the two surveys focusing on income loss, job loss, food security, and dietary diversity. The study also investigated how changes in income, wealth endowments, social capital, safety net programs, and recurrent conflicts affected the severity of food insecurity amid the pandemic. We found that both income and jobs have rebounded by 50 percentage points compared to the baseline results. In terms of food insecurity, households in a “severely food insecure” situation dropped to 65 percent in the follow up survey compared to 73 percent in the first survey and dietary diversity of households improved by 5-percenatge points in the follow-up survey. However, over 70 percent increase in conflicts were re[ported which affected farm investment decisions in 44 percent of smallholder farmers surveyed. While income loss significantly worsened households’ food insecurity; livestock ownership and social capital cushioned many households from falling into a more severe food insecurity. However, safety net programs did not significantly protect households from falling into severe food insecurity amid the pandemic. We suggest four policy propositions: prioritize investment in job creation to curb income loss; enable households to build their wealth base (e.g., land tenure security or livestock) to enhance resilience to shocks; revisit the effectiveness of safety net programs; and finally, devise and implement conflict resolutions to induce investment and enhance productivity.