North-East Nigeria Receives $15 Million Emergency Fund from the United Nations to Battle Food Insecurity

United Nations on Tuesday released Emergency Fund to seven countries that had the highest risk of famine due to economic uncertainties fueled by the global health pandemic.

The head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Mark Lowcock, said $100 million would be split between Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, South Sudan, Yemen, and Ethiopia.

In a statement released by the United Nation in Abuja, the $15 million emergency fund will cushion the negative effect of the global health pandemic leading to food insecurity in North-East of Nigeria.

The states eligible for the emergency funds area; Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe.

According to a food security assessment and projections, over 5 million people are at risk of being critically food insecure in the crisis-affected states in North-Nigeria.

“The humanitarian community is extremely worried by the rising food insecurity in north-east Nigeria. We are now recording levels of food insecurity similar to 2016-2017, at the peak of the humanitarian crisis, when the risk of famine was looming over the north-east,” stated Mr. Edward Kallon, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria.

“We are not at famine levels of food insecurity in Nigeria, but we must spare no efforts to scale up our actions and ensure that the situation does not deteriorate.”

“In the past, we have been able to avert food insecurity deteriorating into a famine by working together, pooling our resources and scaling up our efforts”

“With adequate resources and improved access, we can save lives and curb the trend of rapidly deteriorating food insecurity. This funding from the Central Emergency Response Fund comes right on time to start scaling up these efforts and I appeal to the Member States to provide the resources we urgently need.” He added.

The United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund is a pooled fund with the objective of making funds available in cases where underfund problems arise and immediately start relief operations to avert crises.