Community Hosting of Internally Displaced Persons in Maiduguri, Borno State-Nigeria

Community hosting is a preferred choice for many displaced persons due to unconducive nature of camps; the absence of formal camps; the greater opportunities for work, socialization, education and food production living in the local community offers and the physical, emotional, social, spiritual and economic security it offers. With a number of displaced persons choosing to live in the local communities, members of these communities are providing support and assistance needed for the survival and wellbeing of displaced persons living among them. They are providing services which are significant in saving lives and building the resilience of displaced persons. They play an essential, and often unacknowledged, role in welcoming, supporting and assisting displaced persons at the very onset of displacement when no camps are in place and no humanitarian intervention available. This paper assesses how community hosting contributed to addressing the most basic needs and priorities of displaced persons living in local or host communities within Maiduguri in Nigeria.