UN donates $20m to address food security in North East

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UN donates $20m to address food security in North East

The United Nations has donated $20 million to help address challenges of food security and nutrition in North-East Nigeria.

The Head, Public Information, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Nigeria, Ann Weru, disclosed the donation in a statement on Tuesday.

Weru said the fund support was from the Central Response Fund and the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund.

She said the CERF fund would be voucher support for 95,000 people who are extremely affected by food insecurity in three Borno towns.

Weru noted “In support of government efforts, some $9 million in CERF funding and a complimentary $11 million NHF allocation will go towards a coordinated multi-sectoral response aimed at preventing a deterioration to famine or famine-like conditions.

“Almost 700,000 children under five are likely to suffer from life-threatening severe acute malnutrition in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states in 2023.

“This is more than double the number of SAM cases in 2022 and four times the number of cases in 2021.”

She said there is an extremely high rate of acute malnutrition and deaths are predicted unless there is a rapid and significant scale-up of humanitarian assistance.

Weru explained, “Some $2 million will go to the UN Children’s Fund for the prevention and treatment of acute malnutrition, including providing ready-to-eat therapeutic food and Tom Brown solutions, a nutrient-rich locally produced supplementary food.”

Giving the breakdown of funds, she explained “And $ 1 million will go to the Food and Agriculture Organisation for seeds, tools, and other agricultural livelihood support to boost local production of nutritious foods to build resilience.

“Most of the NHF funding, $11 million, will go towards improving access to clean water and sanitation hygiene, and nutrition, including reactivating, sustaining and scaling up the bed capacity at stabilization centres and scaling up outpatient therapeutic feeding programmes.”

Weru added “The rest of the funding will go to healthcare, including the integrated management of childhood illnesses and complicated SAM cases, and to protection services with a focus on gender-based violence, child protection, and mine action.

“The NHF aims to allocate 50 percent of funding to eligible national partners on the frontlines.”

On his part, UN resident representative in Nigeria, Matthias Schmale, said urgent funding is needed to protect the lives and future of vulnerable children in the North-East region.

“Government, donors, and the international community must make urgent funding available to protect the lives and future of vulnerable children in North-East Nigeria.”