The armed insurgency in northeast Nigeria have continued to have devastating impacts on food and nutrition status of people in the states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.
The Nigeria Representative, Food and Agriculture Organization, Suffyan Koroma says an estimated 2.6 million people in the three states are classified as facing a crisis or worse levels of food insecurity.
The data which runs through the current period of October to December 2019 is a reduction of close to 300 000 people from June 2019, according to recently released Cadre Harmonisé (CH) analysis.
According to Suffiyan, if no humanitarian support is provided, a projected 3.6 million people in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe are likely to be food insecure from June to August 2020 – traditionally the lean season in the northeast.
“A resurgence in conflict and insecurity, wide-scale floods ravaging homesteads and farmlands during the rainy season and outbreaks of diseases, including cholera, are key drivers of the current food and nutrition situation in the northeast’’.
“ There is an urgent need to accelerate the pace by which we remove people from vulnerable situations. This can only be achieved by addressing the root causes of the conflict and by providing sustainable livelihoods support’’.
As agriculture is the largest employer and source of income in the affected states, the United Nations agency says, the promotion of sustainable and higher-income agricultural livelihoods is now critical”.
shared Suffyan Koroma, UN Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) Representative in Nigeria at the CH launch.
Speaking at the launch of the recent data, Suffyan Koroma said the CH analysis also found that an estimated 4.02 million people in 16 northern states and the Federal
Capital Territory have faced and will continue to face food insecurity between October to December 2019.
‘‘About 5.9 million are projected to be food insecure across the north from June to August 2020, if no humanitarian interventions take place. The states included in the analysis were Bauchi, Adamawa, Gombe, Taraba, Yobe, Borno, Kano, Jigawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi, Sokoto, Niger, Benue and Plateau.
The new data on food security was unveiled by the Government of Nigeria and key partners including FAO, the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) and the World Food Programme.
The CH tool is a part of the ECOWAS regional framework for the consensual analysis of acute food insecurity situations and aims to strengthen food security information and analysis.
It recommends the strengthening of food security and nutrition among the vulnerable and strong security actions in areas deemed ‘hard to reach’ and disconnected from humanitarian support.
It also recommended new humanitarian interventions across the 16 states, specifically for populations most at risk, due to volatility, especially in the northern Borno axis.
