The United States has allocated $32.5 million to Nigeria to combat hunger, mere months after US President Donald Trump halted the majority of assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID.
The newly announced funding will deliver food aid and nutritional support to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in regions affected by conflict, as noted by the U.S. mission to Nigeria in a statement released on Wednesday, September 3.
According to the Mission, the grant will assist over 764,000 individuals across Nigeria’s northeast and northwest, including “additional nutritional enhancements for 41,569 pregnant and nursing women and girls, as well as 43,235 children via electronic food vouchers.”
Nigeria is facing a worsening humanitarian crisis.
Ongoing insecurity and cuts in funding have left northern Nigeria ensnared in “an unprecedented crisis of hunger” that could result in more than 1.3 million people going without food and compel the closure of 150 nutrition clinics in Borno state, Margot van der Velden, the World Food Program’s regional director for West Africa, stated in July.
Additionally, in July, the WFP ceased food assistance across crisis-stricken West and Central African nations due to U.S. and other international aid reductions that are stallingits operations.
