Adapting through bricolage: building resilience in Northeast Nigeria

This policy brief examines how farming and pastoralist communities in North-East Nigeria adapt to shocks through livelihood diversification and the creative use of local resources, skills and support systems. It highlights the roles of women and youth in driving resilience through informal and informal networks.

Key findings

• Livelihood diversification or bricolage has become central to household resilience in Adamawa and Yobe, with livelihood income sources blending traditional and innovative practices that generate distinct socioeconomic value. Pastoralist and farming households increasingly combine two to three income sources. Women are expanding into home-based and value-adding enterprises (e.g. food processing and tailoring), while youth are leading the uptake of new technologies, transport, and informal services.
• Informal networks remain the primary engine of adaptation, even where formal support exists. While NGO and government programmes have helped households scale activities, families continue to rely most on kinship ties, savings groups, markets, intergenerational learning, and peer mentorship to access knowledge, cash, and labour.
• Structural barriers continue to limit equitable livelihoods opportunities. Women and youth pastoralists, especially in remote areas, face persistent additional constraints including limited capital, insecure land tenure, restrictive social norms, and geographic isolation.
• Resilience is strongest when individual effort, social networks and formal support align, enabling households to bounce back faster and diversify livelihoods in the face of recurrent shocks.