The WFP Country Representative of the World Food Programme (WFP), Myrta Kaulard has said that the Programme would give food assistance to 1.5 million Nigerians in 2018.
Speaking in Abuja on Thursday, she said that from 2017 to date WFP had spent 126 million dollars to give food assistance in various forms to 1.1 million people in the sixteen northern states of Nigeria.
Naming the as Bauchi, Benue, Gombe, Jigawa, Plateau, Niger, Kebbi, Katsina, Kaduna, Taraba, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kano, Yobe, Borno and Adamawa, Kaulard said that the number of the affected people would be increased during the lean season between June and September when the food stock would have been depleted.
She said that WFP carried out the exercise by mopping up assistance from countries that were friendly to Nigeria. “We also provide nutritional supply to pregnant women to prevent unnecessary mother and child death.”
Kaulard said that while the Programme gave support to people to engage in agricultural activities, those assisted were mostly vulerable in the Norrtheastern Nigeria.
She exlained that at the request of Nigerian government in 2016, WFP began humanitarian operations in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states and in October 2017, WFP in collaboration with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, FAO, Save the Children Initiative, conducted an Emergency Food Security Assessment (EFSA) to analyse the food security situation across 19,600 households in 62 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States.
