Boko Haram: US announces $102 Million new humanitarian assistance to Nigeria

The United States of America (USA) has announced an additional $102 Million assistance to Nigeria in order to meet the needs of victims of the Boko Haram insurgency.

U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Stuart Symington made the announcement while speaking at the Thursday’s Plenary Session of the ongoing National Conversation on the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus, in Abuja.

He said the additional funds will help address the shelter, health and food security needs of populations in the northeast still struggling with the effects of the Boko Haram insurgency.

"These funds for Nigeria represent the vast majority of the U.S. government’s new $112 million infusion for the Lake Chad region," he said.

According the to the Ambassador, the assistance will be administered primarily through the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) offices of Food for Peace (FFP) and Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), as well as the U.S. State Department’s Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration.

“Our hope is that this new investment in humanitarian assistance will combine with the efforts of your government and people to move Nigeria forward on a path to peace and prosperity,” Ambassador Symington told assembled journalists following a series of goodwill messages from diplomats, heads of humanitarian agencies, and Nigeria’s public and private sectors.

The funding in today’s announcement will provide life-saving aid to hundreds of thousands of people, including emergency food assistance, nutrition treatment, shelter, health services, safe drinking water, services for survivors of sexual violence, and support to children who have been separated from their families.

As of May 2018, an estimated 2.3 million people in the northeast experienced extreme food insecurity, largely due to widespread insecurity, protracted displacement, depleted assets, and the interruption of agricultural production throughout the region.

Overall, an estimated 7.7 million people in the northeast require urgent humanitarian assistance. Even as the Nigerian military makes progress, access to those most in need remains tenuous in many areas and the operating environment is highly volatile.

The United States is the largest donor for the humanitarian response in the Lake Chad Basin Region, providing nearly $761 million since 2017.

Speaking at the event, the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning Zainab Ahmed said the whole idea of the programme was to bring development partners together to deliberate on how to restore peace in the country, adding that peace remained the precausor for any development.



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