Yemisi Izuora.
The World Food Programme, WFP, of the United Nations is currently reviewing its
5-year Country Strategic Plan (CSP), to guide it’s continuing engagement to help Nigeria achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 and end hunger and malnutrition by 2030.
According to the agency, the CSP will focus on supporting longer-term national social protection and resilience-building to achieve Zero Hunger, while also maintaining its strong humanitarian assistance capacity.
In its recent report on Nigeria, the WFP estimated that 5.2 million people in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States, and 50,000 people are experiencing famine-like conditions during the lean season between June-September while 1.69 million people are displaced across Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States.
According to the report the WFP in the month of July had both directly and through partnerships, provided food assistance to approximately 1.1 million beneficiaries in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States while through the seed protection livelihood programme, in August he WFP assisted with FAO 609,400 beneficiaries.
Oriental News Nigeria reports that the agency however raised concerns that the rainy season is starting to pose challenges slowing transportation in select areas even as congestion at Lagos port continues to hamper its food pipeline and is presently affecting the timely delivery of specialized nutritious food, crucial for distributions to children and nursing mothers.
The report also cited that insecurity had persisted in parts of Northeast Nigeria, disrupting food supplies, seriously hindering access to basic services, and limiting agricultural activities, worsening an already dire food security situation, stressing that while an increasing amount of territory has become accessible to humanitarian workers, the situation remains unpredictable following incidents of suicide bombings and attacks against civilians which persisted during the reporting period.
Security threats have particularly affected farming and restricted livelihood activities, thus causing disruption to markets in the Lake Chad Basin region, and significantly affecting the availability of food and the number of IDPs across Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States stood at 1.69 million in June; 60,000 lower than in May, according to International Organization for Migration.
The ongoing trend of refugee returns from Cameroon, Niger, and Chad has put increased pressure on the already existing displacement situation in the bordering towns of Banki, Gamboru, Ngala, Damasak, and Pulka, the report said.
Similarly, the UNHCR reports that between April and June this year over 15,000 people have come back from Cameroon to Banki in Borno State. Borno State government has relocated more than 4,500 of the returnees to Pulka and Bama. The influx of returnees is severely stressing limited existing services and aggravating the food and nutrition crisis.
The report adds that the prevalence of poor food consumption is relatively high among newly arrived households and those not receiving food assistance in eastern Borno State, highlighting the importance of sustained food aid to these households, according to a Rapid Food Security Assessment conducted by WFP in June while surface travel is often impeded or restricted by challenging security situations and the ongoing rainy season is currently creating additional challenges to humanitarian access in select areas. Delays in convoy movements to Rann have been reported by partners.
He WFP said that 2016, it has been responding to the food security needs caused by the armed conflict in Northern-East Nigeria and has scaled up food assistance (from 160,000 beneficiaries in October 2016 to over a million each month since last December) in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States by cooperating with national and state emergency agencies and has increased its footprint through 18 partnerships with national and international humanitarian organisations.
Due to the multidimensional nature of the crisis, WFP has been utilising the most appropriate and context- specific transfer modalities and delivery mechanisms – both in-kind and cash-based transfers- to support IDPs living in camps or with host communities, as well as vulnerable host populations, the report observed.
It said that specialised nutritional food assistance is being provided through a blanket supplementary feeding (BSF) programme to children aged 6 to 23 months and to pregnant and nursing mothers and that through its partners, it is able to provide food assistance on a daily basis to returnees from Cameroon to Bama, Gwoza and Ngala local government areas.
To restore livelihoods, WFP has launched with FAO an integrated two-fold approach which combines emergency food assistance with support to smallholder agriculture production (seeds and tools), the report added.