The United Nations (UN) World Food Programme (WFP) has declared that Nigeria is the world’s fifth country currently experiencing food crisis after Ethiopia and Democratic Republic of Congo, followed by war torn Yemen and Afghanistan.
This was contained in its just-released Nigeria Country Strategic Plan (2023–2027).
According to WFP, one in three households in the country cannot afford a nutritious diet while over 100 million people report at least moderate food insecurity even though Nigeria’s abundant natural resources and untapped human capital indicate the potential to achieve zero hunger.
WFP stated that with at least 19.5 million people in need of emergency assistance in 2022 and some communities in Nigeria’s conflict-affected north-east projected to slide into catastrophic levels of food insecurity, urgent targeted humanitarian action was needed to save lives and livelihoods, requiring not only emergency responses but also anticipatory action.
Nigeria, it stated, was still to match the ambition of its commitments despite measurable progress on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The WFP declared: “Even though Nigeria graduated to lower-middle-income status in 2014, its immense human development potential remains unfulfilled, and its 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.
“Africa’s biggest economy and most populous country has the world’s fifth-highest burden of people experiencing food crisis or worse, exceeded only by Yemen, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“With at least 19.5 million people in need of urgent assistance in 2022 and some communities in the conflict-affected northeast projected to slide into catastrophic levels of food insecurity, targeted humanitarian action is urgently needed to save lives and livelihoods, requiring not only emergency responses but also anticipatory action.”
The global humanitarian body stressed that the severity and magnitude of the regionalised crises have been compounded by the global food supply crisis, constraining Nigeria’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the agency revealed its plan to expand humanitarian operations in the north-east and north-west and among Cameroonian refugees in border states.
“To meet the challenges posed by the situation, WFP will integrate its dual mandate in Nigeria through work at the humanitarian–development–peace nexus, applying targeted emergency responses that save lives while forging shock-responsive pathways to early recovery and sustainable, resilient food security, all underpinned by the integration of nutrition, gender, climate change adaptation and protection concerns into its changing-lives activities,” it said.