WFP commits $2.5bn to tackle hunger in Nigeria

•Says 2.1m beneficiaries captured

From Okwe Obi, Abuja

The World Food Programme (WFP) has pledged to commit $2.5 billion to address food insecurity in the country.

WFP Country Director, David Stevesson, disclosed this yesterday, when he led a team of the United Nations (UN) agency to visit the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu in Abuja.

Stevesson noted that 2.1 million Nigerians have already been captured as beneficiaries of the programme.

He said WFP would support the Nigerian government’s intervention efforts including the food security agenda and the Zero Hunger Programme among others.

“We talked about zero hunger, we talked about the humanitarian hubs in every local government area in the country, we talked about the world food programs, the potential to support those hubs through buying food locally and also assisting in the cash transfer and food.  These are very impressive.

“Let me announce here that the World Food Programme is committed to spending $2.5 billion To Fight Hunger in Nigeria in  the next five years”, the WFP boss said.

Responding, Dr Edu commended the WFP Country Director informed Stevesson that there were over 133 million people in Nigeria affected by multidimensional poverty, stressing that WFP’s intervention of $2.5Billion for five years “will go a long way to address some  of the biggest challenges the country is facing, which is hunger”

According to the Minister, “Zero Hunger” is one of the projects her Ministry has initiated as part of poverty and humanitarian response efforts, and appealed to the WFP to key into it by working with the Ministry to achieve results.

Edu explained that Homegrown School Feeding is one aspect of the Zero Hunger Project, as the Ministry will be working on different nutritional programs that will target both pregnant women, children under five, school feeding, feeding of persons who are affected by humanitarian crises, aged and the persons of concern, “including refugees that have found themselves within our space”

“We have over 80,000 persons as refugees presently, in Nigeria. The state I come from alone, there are over 40,000 refugees and these are just those who are registered,” she added.