Structural Determinants of Child Wasting in Conflict-Affected Communities of North East Nigeria: A Political Economy Analysis

Child wasting in the Lake Chad Basin region of North East Nigeria reflects structural conditions rooted in political economy, governance failures, and humanitarian system dynamics that conventional biomedical and behavioural nutrition research frameworks fail to adequately theorise. This study conducts a political economy analysis of structural determinants of child wasting across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe States, integrating critical theory with empirical nutrition data. A critical realism philosophical framework underpinned the study design. A multi-method approach combined structured population-based surveys of 1,500 households with administrative data analysis, budget tracking of state and federal nutrition expenditures, and semi-structured interviews with 60 key informants including government officials, humanitarian actors, community leaders, and nutrition programme managers. An actor-network analysis mapped the interests, power relations, and decision-making structures shaping nutrition system architecture in the North East. A documentary analysis of nutrition programme records, audit reports, and policy documents spanning a decade illuminated accountability gaps and programmatic discontinuities. Findings from empirical layers were synthesised using retroductive analysis to identify mechanisms through which macro-structural factors including governance quality, resource allocation patterns, conflict economy dynamics, and humanitarian dependency generate and perpetuate child wasting. An original theoretical model integrating political economy and nutrition systems frameworks is produced. The study delivers an explicitly political analysis that challenges purely technocratic approaches to humanitarian nutrition programming in conflict settings, contributing a critical scholarship perspective rarely found in nutrition science literature. Keywords: political economy, child wasting, structural determinants, North East Nigeria, conflict nutrition.