Boko Haram: UN, NGOs Joint efforts to fight catastrophic food insecurity in Northeast Nigeria

Boko Haram: UN, NGOs Joint efforts to fight catastrophic food insecurity in Northeast Nigeria

The combination of conflict, COVID-19, increased food prices and the effects of climate change are decimating livelihoods and people’s access to food.

This informed the coming together of members of the humanitarian community to formed an in-country taskforce to respond to the crisis and prevent catastrophic food insecurity that would push the north-east over the edge.

Members of the joint taskforce are agencies including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Organization on Migration (IOM), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency and the World Food Programme (WFP), along with non-governmental partners Action Against Hunger/Action contre le faim (ACF), CARE International, Catholic Relief Service (CRS), and Save the Children.

The Task Force is coordinating and working with the Government to implement a comprehensive and robust operational plan, guided by an intersectoral response involving Food Security, Nutrition, Health, Protection and Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH).

A statement on Thursday from Christine Cool, Head of Public Information and Communications, UNOCHA explained that the implementation of the plan leverages existing mechanisms and teams to ensure communities that are hardest-to-reach receive the immediate food and nutrition assistance they need.

“The Task Force oversees operational teams deployed to at-risk communities, as they tackle issues related to logistics, the volume of assistance needed, speed of delivery and access to affected people, while ensuring that all activities conform to best practices in terms of accountability to affected people, gender, age and disability concerns.

“The Task Force will ensure that preventative actions are taken to increase awareness and reduce the opportunities for the exploitation and abuse of children and vulnerable families.” The statement added.

According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Acute Malnutrition Analysis (IPC AMN) of March 2021, the number of acutely malnourished children and women is expected to significantly increase during the 2021 lean season, with some 1.15 million children and over 124,000 women projected to be acutely malnourished.

“This will be the highest levels of women and children at risk since 2017, when the crisis was at its peak.

“More than a quarter of households in the north-east are food insecure. To cope with hunger, families are forced to adopt negative coping mechanisms—reducing the number and quantity of meals fed to their families, selling remaining assets, borrowing money and food among others, pushing them deeper into a cycle of hunger, malnutrition, vulnerability and despair.” The statement explained.

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According to the task force, hunger is on the rise worldwide, adding that across the world, high levels of food insecurity are in danger of deteriorating into catastrophic conditions, unless this is urgently addressed. Millions of people are at risk and Northeast Nigeria is on the brink of catastrophic food insecurity.

“In north-east Nigeria, the outlook is dire. Without sustained humanitarian assistance in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, millions will struggle to feed themselves during this critical 2021 lean season. According to the March 2021 Cadre Harmonisé food security assessment, an estimated 4.4 million people, including internally displaced people, are expected to face critical food shortages. Some 775,000 people are at extreme risk of catastrophic food insecurity—the worst outlook in 4 years.” The tastforce observed.

While speaking on the concern Mr. Edward Kellon, the humanitarian coordinator said “the humanitarian community is deeply concerned by the alarming food insecurity in north-east Nigeria. Levels of food insecurity today are similar to 2016-17, when the crisis was at its worst. The U.N. and its non-governmental partners are working with the Government to respond to this growing threat of catastrophic food insecurity,” said Edward Kallon, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria.

“Women in affected communities have shared stories of sleepless children who cry through the night due to hunger,” said Mr. Kallon.