WFP Pledges $2.5bn To Fight Hunger In Nigeria

The World Food Programme (WFP) has pledged to commit 2.5 billion dollars to strengthen and support Nigeria’s efforts towards sustainable food security and zero hunger across the country. The WFP Country Director, Mr David Stevesson, disclosed this when he led the UN agency’s team to the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, in Abuja. “We talked about zero hunger, we talked about humanitarian hubs in every local government area in the country, we talked about the world food programme. “The potential to support those hubs through buying food locally and assisting the needy with cash transfers and food. “Let me announce here that the World Food Programme is committed to spending 2.5 billion dollars to fight hunger in the next five years in Nigeria,” he said. Stevesson said that the agency had already captured 2.1 million beneficiaries under the programme with the hope of maintaining working relationship with the ministry to achieve the target. He expressed the agency’s readiness to support the Federal Government’s determination to address humanitarian crises and poverty issues, especially as it related to food security. “We are excited by President Bola Tinubu’s commitment and drive to eradicate poverty and reduce humanitarian crises in Nigeria. “The new energy which the Minister is bringing into the space gives us hope that we will accomplish a lot together,” he said. While congratulating the minister on her appointment, the WFP Country Director expressed optimism on the ability of the minister to deliver on the mandate. In her response, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, said that the intervention would go a long way to address some of the humanitarian challenges affecting the country. According to her, “Zero Hunger” is one of the projects the Ministry has initiated as part of poverty and humanitarian response efforts. “We, therefore, appeal to the WFP to key into it by working with the Ministry to achieve results because, this intervention will go a long way to address some of the biggest challenges the country is facing” she said. Edu told the WFP delegation that over 133 million people in Nigeria are affected by multi-dimensional poverty. She said that the National Homegrown School Feeding was one aspect of the Zero Hunger Project. “The Ministry will be working on different nutritional food programme that will target pregnant women, children under the age of five years and school pupils. “Feeding persons who are affected by humanitarian crises, the aged including refugees that have found themselves within our space. “Currently, we have over 80,000 persons living as refugees across Nigeria,” she said. She said that the ministry had introduced an innovative way of rejigging the humanitarian response in the country. “Part of the innovation we are bringing on board is what we call humanitarian hub because we want to create 774 of these humanitarian hubs in each local government across Nigeria,” the minister assured.

FAO launches action plan for ambitious climate strategy

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has launched an Action Plan designed to support the implementation of its ambitious Strategy on Climate Change 2022-2031.   According to a statement on its website, the strategy, which was endorsed in June 2022 by its executive Council, envisages agri-food systems as sustainable, inclusive, resilient, and adaptive to climate change.  Global Agrifood Systems, which encompass the production of food and non-food agricultural products, as well as their storage, transportation, processing, distribution, marketing, disposal, and consumption, are currently responsible for about a third of total greenhouse gas emissions. They are also one of the major victims of the climate crisis. But agrifood systems also offer many solutions for confronting the climate crisis, from building resilience and adaptation to mitigation and sequestration. The Strategy aims to scale up the visibility, uptake, and investment in these solutions by contributing to adaptive, resilient low-emission economies “while providing sufficient, safe, and nutritious foods for healthy diets, as well as other agricultural products and services, for present and future generations, leaving no one behind.  Crucially, it recognizes that the time to act is now. To guarantee the successful and timely implementation of the Strategy, FAO has developed an Action Plan based on discussions with its FAO Members, so as to ensure that it reflects their needs and priorities as closely as possible. “FAO’s Strategy on Climate Change is our response to the worldwide challenge of tackling the impacts of the climate crisis, while aiming to address a broad range of interlinked challenges, including biodiversity loss, desertification, land and environmental degradation, the need for accessible, affordable renewable energy, and food and water security. This Action Plan will help implement agrifood system solutions to climate change from across all FAO areas of work, ensuring we are working as one FAO,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu. The plan involves three pillars, advocacy at global and regional levels; policy support at the country level; and the scaling-up of climate action on the ground with local actors and vulnerable populations. The UN agency is already stepping up its advocacy efforts in global fora. For example, FAO was recognized as a strategic partner of the COP27 Presidency, supported the agricultural track of the climate negotiations, and hosted a Food and Agriculture pavilion for the first time at the Climate Change Conference held in Sharm el-Sheikh in November 2022. In terms of policy support to FAO Members, the Plan aims to intensify support in the elaboration and implementation of climate commitments, in particular the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and nationally determined contributions (NDCs). FAO is active in this area with its Scaling up Climate Ambition on Land Use and Agriculture through nationally determined contributions and National Adaptation Plans (SCALA) program, which is currently active in 12 countries spread across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.