A new report from the Amahoro Coalition puts a number on something displaced communities across Nigeria’s Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states have known for years: they are not waiting on the sidelines of the economy. They are already in it. Africa’s 43 million displaced people generate a combined 27 billion dollars in annual income, a market roughly the size of Zambia’s GDP, built almost entirely without support from formal financial or investment systems. Source Business Insider Africa
The numbers challenge the usual framing. More than half of Africa’s displaced population is already economically active. Displaced entrepreneurs fail at one-third the rate of host-community businesses. Refugee-focused lenders see loan repayment rates above 95 percent, outperforming many mainstream microfinance portfolios. In northern Nigeria specifically, 56 percent of farmland in displacement-affected areas sits fallow, unused simply because access frameworks have not caught up.
“We do not necessarily want to have a humanitarian conversation,” said Tito Mbathi, Strategy Custodian for Partnerships at Amahoro Coalition. “We want to have a commercial conversation.”
Five market openings
The report identifies five sectors where the opportunity is concentrated:
- 2.4 billion dollars in agricultural upside if land access improves.
- 3.2 billion dollars in formal finance gaps, where fewer than 10 institutions currently serve 27 million displaced people.
- 720 million dollars in supply chain logistics opportunity as aid shifts from physical delivery to digital vouchers.
- 4.1 billion dollars in earning potential from 3.4 million displaced-led businesses.
- 2.8 billion dollars in manufacturing output is already coming from 1.5 million displaced workers.
Some of this is already proven, not theoretical. MyBucks opened the world’s first bank branch inside a refugee camp in Malawi and turned profitable within a year. In eastern DRC, Kivu Society Corporation, founded by Amahoro Fellow Amos Kwizera, built a juice manufacturing operation in an active conflict zone and secured a distribution partnership with Coca-Cola.
Why Nigeria is paying attention
Nigerian business leaders are starting to take notice. Kabir Ibrahim, President of the Nigeria Agribusiness Group, said he began with skepticism before the data changed his mind. Manzo Maigari, Chairman of AgroLog Ltd, went further, calling the integration of displaced persons into agricultural value chains an economic necessity rather than a choice.
Amahoro Coalition is now calling on investors, development finance institutions, and private sector leaders across Africa to look directly at these markets. Through its Fellowship programme, the coalition has supported 129 Fellows, created more than 2,200 jobs, and helped unlock over 4 million dollars in additional external funding.
The question the report leaves on the table is simple: how much longer will Africa’s private sector treat displacement as a cost to manage, rather than a market to enter?
The full report is available at www.amahorocoalition.com.
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