Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses the construction of the humanitarian response in the southeast of Niger. It focuses on the interaction between public authorities and humanitarian actors while putting it in the historical context of "humanitarian crisis" and political concerns regarding territory control.

Paper long abstract:

Since first major attacks of Boko Haram in the cities of Diffa and Bosso in February 2015, the number of displaced people in southeast of Niger has been rapidly growing. According to Niger authorities (Dec. 2016) there are about 241 000 refugees, returnees and internally displaced people who face increased vulnerability due to the lack of shelter, food and important pressure on water resources. The paper examines the construction of the humanitarian response while putting it in the historical context of "humanitarian crisis" due to successive Sahel droughts and armed-rebellions. Diverse actors are engaged on different levels in the humanitarian response in Diffa: public, traditional and religious authorities, European Union, UN, NGOs as well as aid beneficiaries who is partly involved in the implementation process. Basing on the fieldwork conducted in 2016 and 2017, the contribution proposes to reflect on the zones of conflict, competition and collaboration between different forms of state authority and humanitarian actors on central and local levels. Do humanitarian actors tend to monopolize State's fields of competence, to replace or even to act in place of the state actors? To what extent state actors use security concerns to assure better control over its public policies and on the population? What do these tensions and conflicts reveal in terms of perceptions of the Boko Haram war? The paper proposes reading the humanitarian response in Diffa through these interactions, visions and appropriations.