THE DOUBLE BURDEN: REFUGEE INFLUX, HUMAN CAPITAL, AND HUMAN SECURITY IN RURAL HOST ECONOMIES OF CAMEROON

Abstract

The protracted conflict in the Central African Republic (CAR) has triggered a significant influx of refugees into the rural economies of Cameroon’s East Region, intensifying competition over scarce resources and pressuring local infrastructure. This study aimed to first evaluate the human security status of CAR refugees, host communities, and control groups; second, identify the key drivers of human security; third, investigate the causal effect of humanitarian strategies on human security outcomes. This study employs a rural economics framework drawing on a large-scale survey of 3,540 respondents and focus group discussions. We construct a multidimensional Human Security Index (HSI) to quantify welfare outcomes. Recognising endogeneity in aid placement, we utilise innovative instrumental variables, including conflict intensity, border stretch, and distance from conflict zones, in a two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimation. The findings revealed an alarmingly low aggregate human security status (HSI = 0.457) across all groups, with host communities and control groups faring worse than refugees. The analysis identified that while emergency aid interventions had a positive causal effect on human security, strategies aimed at recovery and resilience-building were critically inadequate and, for host communities, often had negative effects, failing to mitigate the strain on local labour markets and social services. Key drivers included proximity to conflict, access to aid, and socio-economic characteristics, with the study concluding that the current humanitarian response exacerbates dependency and fails to facilitate a sustainable transition from relief to development within the rural host economy.