WFP to Spend $2.5 Billion on Hunger, Malnutrition in Nigeria

Michael Olugbode in Abuja

The United Nation World Food Programme (WFP) is to spend $2.5 billion in the next four years to assist Nigeria in combating hunger and malnutrition.

This is was revealed in Abuja, yesterday, during a joint press conference by WFP and the Ministry of Humanitarian Disaster Management and Social Development to announce the WFP Country Strategic Plan (CSP) 2023-2027.

The WFP Representative and Country Director, David Stevenson said Nigeria’s most vulnerable people continue to suffer critical levels of food insecurity and malnutrition, driven by persistent conflict, organised violence, recurrent climate shocks and broad exposure to the impact of climate change.

He lamented that one in three households in Nigeria cannot afford nutritious food and more than 100 million people report at least moderate food insecurity, further decrying that the severity and scale of regionalized crises have been compounded by the global food supply crisis, which has hampered Nigeria’s economic recovery from the 2019 coronavirus pandemic.

He disclosed that the WFP Nigeria CSP covers the Northeast, Northwest and states hosting Cameroonian refugees with a total budget of USD 2.5 billion for five years.

He said: “To address the challenges posed by the deteriorating food and nutrition situation, WFP will integrate its dual mandate by working on the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, applying targeted emergency responses that save lives while opening shock-responsive pathways to rapid recovery and resilience using a gender transformative, nutrition mainstreaming, climate smart, and conflict sensitive approach.”

Stevenson noted that WFP focuses on crisis response, resilience building and addressing the roots causes of food insecurity and malnutrition and includes five fully integrated outcomes.

He revealed that 4.3 million people required food assistance during the lean season (June – August). of which 522,367 will be in the ‘emergency phase’ (Phase 4), noting that recurrent climate shocks with widespread crop loss from flooding, unprecedented food inflation and conflict have contributed to the deterioration of the situation. A quadrupling of severe acute malnutrition to 700,000 and 600,000 in Phase 4 emergency conditions.

He said to respond to the needs, WFP would increase the number of people assisted with lifesaving food assistance from one million now in February to 2.1 million during the peak of the lean season before scaling down during the harvest period. The rest of the food security actors plan to assist 700 thousand people, noting that this will leave a gap of 1.5 million people not assisted.

He added that the WFP would use in-kind food, electronic voucher or cash to provide the assistance. The transfer modality selection would be informed by multi-sectoral assessment which would consider market functionality, protection risks, government regulations, availability of financial infrastructures, beneficiaries’ preference and how the modality contributes to resilience supporting food systems or connecting farmers to markets.

He reiterated that WFP’s total funding requirement for 2023 is $473 million of which US$400 million is to provide lifesaving food and nutrition assistance to the most vulnerable people in Northeast Nigeria, adding that WFP urgently required $255.5 million to meet assistance needs for the next six months (March to August 2023).

In his speech, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Dr. Nasir Sani-Gwarzo, noted that the partnership that existed between the Ministry and WFP had been very cordial and had achieved several milestones in the humanitarian space.