Women husking corn in an IDP camp in Baga Sola, Chad (©Arno Trümper/adelphi)
Social cohesion is a crucial part of building resilience in the Lake Chad region. This involves building up trust and relations among individuals, groups and communities such as IDPs, refugees and host communities. It also includes efforts that build the social contract between the state and the local population and activities that support institutional capacity among local and national governments. Ultimately, a people-centred crisis needs a people-centred response.
Specifically, this could entail processes to ensure access to justice and dialogue between people in IDP or refugee camps and host communities, between former fighters and other communities and across generations. Securing peoples’ right to land can directly contribute to peacebuilding and building social cohesion, but these policies need to be climate and conflict sensitive.