Central Emergency Response Fund allocates US$10M to Nigeria’s two million starving children

20 Sep 2022 --- The northeast region of Nigeria is being devastated by a massive food and nutrition crisis and has reported a 34% increase in acute malnutrition cases compared to last year and the worst the region has seen since 2016. The Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has allocated the equivalent of US$10 million in funds in order to get aid to those most in need.

Furthermore, the country expects that, by the end of the year, an estimated 1.74 million children under the age of five will suffer from the effects of acute malnutrition and over 300,000 children are predicted to suffer the effects of severe acute malnutrition. It is further stated that almost four million people are going hungry.

“We urgently need to close the funding gap to rapidly scale up the response and implement immediate life-saving measures,” says Matthias Schmale, a resident and humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria. For the thousands of children trying to survive, additional funding is needed today, not tomorrow.”

Too little will be too latePartly due to the effects of climate change and political upheaval, food and nutrition security is in crisis in many parts of the globe.
Experts emphasize that despite this funding, there is still “a massive funding gap” of around US$39 million. They further stress that, barring immediate action, over five thousand children are expected to die within the next few days.

They also affirm that many of the children who survive face potential lifelong mental and physical disabilities and the aftereffects of wasting developmental stagnation caused by malnutrition. Moreover, malnutrition increases the severity and frequency of common infections and delays recovery, putting children at a greater risk of death from common ailments.

The funds allocated by CERF will allow the nation to address these immediate issues by increasing treatment capacities and allowing for early acute malnutrition identification. It will also allow for prevention and increase the availability of necessary nutritious foods to help protect children and pregnant mothers from repeated bouts of acute malnutrition.

A growing global problem
The funding is the latest in a series of efforts to curb the effects of the country’s escalating crisis. CERF already allocated US$15 million in May, and the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund gave a total of US$3.5 million last September.  

The crisis in Nigeria comes at a time when global food and nutrition security is threatened in all corners of the globe. Across the African continent, the countries of South Sudan, Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia are experiencing crises of malnutrition, including starvation. Sri Lanka and India are experiencing similar difficulties. 

UNICEF has further warned of an imminent “explosion” of child deaths by starvation within the Horn of Africa. The current problems are further exacerbated by climate change, the pandemic and political conflict.

Edited by William Bradford Nichols