The transformative role of community-based social provisioning in addressing flood-induced food insecurity in Anambra state, Nigeria

Nigeria has the world’s fifth-highest burden of people experiencing food crises, with flooding as a major contributor to food insecurity. The country’s social policy lacks provisions for climate-related risks. Thus, most of the population relies on community-based mechanisms to handle such risks, but these tend to be overlooked in the country’s social policy. This study uses qualitative data–interviews, focus groups, and participant observations to ascertain the impacts of flooding on food security and the role of community-based social provisioning in addressing flood-induced food insecurity in selected riverine communities in Anambra state, Nigeria. The findings are thematically analysed and interpreted using the Transformative Social Policy framework. It finds that floods significantly affect food security. While state interventions focus on social protection, community-based mechanisms play significant roles that align with the multiple tasks of transformative social policy. The study recommends formally recognising community-based social provisioning and integrating climate-risk measures in Nigeria’s social protection policy, implementing agrarian reforms that enhance infant and child nutrition, and strengthening state–community partnerships for development. Its novelty lies in its integrated analytical approach: connecting ethnographic evidence on flood impacts across all four food security dimensions with systematic mapping of community responses to the five objectives of transformative social policy.