Data gathering and utilization: humanitarian targeting and ethical issues in northeastern Nigeria

Abstract

There are lapses in Nigeria’s data ecosystems with the consequences of imprecise and inaccurate data on humanitarian crises limiting accurate interventions. Therefore, we examined the data targeting processes in the humanitarian sector of Northeast Nigeria and the ethical concerns that arise when such data is collected and used to advance understanding and improve humanitarian protection systems. The fieldwork was done in two phases in Maiduguri Borno, North-East Nigeria, between 2021 and 2022. This period was selected because it was the climax of IDP camps in the Northeastern part of the country. Maiduguri was selected for the study because it is the capital of Borno state which is the epicenter of insurgency and internal displacements in Nigeria. Hence, a lot of the most vibrant IDP camps in Nigeria were in Maiduguri for care and security reasons. Fifty in-depth interviews were conducted among the displaced persons across five camps. We also interviewed twenty stakeholders and practitioners working with IDPs to understand Nigeria’s data-based humanitarian contexts of internal displacement. The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim by a language expert. The data were coded, and content analyzed to provide context and explore significant operational and ethical issues in data-driven humanitarian protection. There are discrepancies in the definition of vulnerability in data gathering, putting into question how targeting is carried out to identify vulnerable people and its implications for exclusion. Different data banks and reliability issues across institutions and actors make room for a multiplicity of data and problematic synergy relative to data and ethics. Inconsistent ethical systems guide data gathering and utilization in IDP camps; for instance, there are ineffective norms of recording and securing informed consent during data gathering. States, partners, and IDP camps confront debilitating capacity gaps and equipment deficits that make updated data gathering, storing, retrieval, and utilization. Paper and digital data storage processes were often used with restricted access to only a few key stakeholders. There is vast data expropriation without standard recourse to justice and beneficence as ethical procedures in the humanitarian data space of northeastern Nigeria as a microcosm of Sub-Saharan African realities. There are enormous implications for effective and efficient targeting processes and outcomes, strategic inclusion, and ethical practices in conflict management, humanitarian interventions, and internal displacement in sub-Saharan Africa.