HOUSEHOLD COPING STRATEGIES IN THE FACE OF THE SECURITY CRISIS: TYPOLOGY AND DETERMINANTS IN ATACORA, ALIBORI AND BORGOU (NORTHERN BENIN)

As insecurity spreads across northern Benin, displaced households and their host families use a range of strategies to protect their consumption and livelihoods. This study builds a typology of these strategies and analyses their determinants in Atacora, Alibori and Borgou. It draws on a Benin Red Cross household survey (August to September 2026) of 2,451 households in 13 communes. Sixteen strategies were classified by severity (stress, crisis, emergency) following the WFP CARI approach. Multiple correspondence analysis and hierarchical clustering produced a typology, whose determinants were estimated with a multinomial logit model and whose geography was analysed through spatial autocorrelation on 151 villages. Nearly all households reduce meals (85.9%). Help from family or friends (43.7%), borrowing (35.0%) and community gifts (33.1%) are the most common strategies, and 44.0% of households reach the crisis level. Five types emerge: dead end, with no possible strategy (11.1%); erosion of human capital and mobility (24.3%); mobilization of own resources (21.5%); accumulation of support (14.9%); and family solidarity (28.2%). The commune discriminates types better (Cramér’s V = 0.21) than the department (0.16) or displacement status (0.11). Land access, livestock, aid received and shocks experienced steer households toward one type or another. Types 2 and 3 show the lowest food consumption. Aid should be targeted by coping profile and territory rather than by status alone.