The Role of Insurance in Financing Small Enterprise Recovery After Conflict in Northeastern Nigeria: A Reconstruction Finance Perspective

This dissertation examines the role of insurance in financing small enterprise recovery in post-conflict reconstruction contexts in northeastern Nigeria, developing an original Conflict-Zone Insurance Finance (CZIF) framework applicable to enterprise reconstruction in areas emerging from prolonged armed conflict. Northeastern Nigeria, encompassing Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa states, has experienced over a decade of humanitarian crisis that has decimated small enterprise ecosystems, destroyed physical assets, and collapsed financial intermediation networks. As security conditions improve in parts of the region, the potential role of insurance in financing enterprise reconstruction and building long-term resilience has attracted policy interest but received no systematic academic analysis. This study employs a mixed-methods design incorporating a longitudinal survey of 400 surviving enterprises in reintegrated communities of Borno and Adamawa states, institutional analysis of humanitarian-insurance partnership models globally, and participatory action research with enterprise recovery stakeholders. Regression discontinuity design exploits spatial variation in security conditions to identify the causal effect of insurance access on enterprise recovery velocity. Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) identifies the configuration of conditions associated with successful insurance-mediated recovery. The CZIF framework integrates findings into a generalizable policy architecture. Keywords: Conflict Recovery, Enterprise Finance, Insurance, Northeastern Nigeria, Reconstruction Finance.