By Enyichukwu Enemanna
World Food Programme (WFP) says it is releasing the sum of $2.5 billion to fight hunger in Nigeria in the next five years.
This is good news to at least 133 million people in the most populous West African country said to be affected by multi-dimensional poverty.
Poverty and hunger in the country have been exacerbated by unemployment, insecurity and most recently, the removal of subsidy on petroleum, a development that has led to hyper-inflation, skyrocketing prices of staple foods and other commodities.
WFP Country Director, David Stevesson who led a team of the UN agency to visit the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Betta Edu, noted that 2.1million Nigerians have already been captured as beneficiaries of the program
“I’ve been very impressed in such a short time to hear about the Minister’s leadership, putting together the strategy for the Ministry.
“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 $2.5Billion to Fight Hunger in Nigeria in the next five years”, the WFP boss said.
This 2.1million figure he assured will be expanded with the assistance of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.
Edu while receiving the delegation expressed gratitude to the the WFP Country Director for the visit and financial support to Nigeria.
She said the ‘zero hunger” is one of the projects her ministry has initiated as part of poverty and humanitarian response efforts.
Insecurity across regions of the country, especially in northern region has forced farmers to abandon their homes and farmlands to flees as armed bandits and terrorists continue to hold large swathes of lands.
