The United States has approved $32.5 million in funding to help Nigeria respond to its worsening hunger crisis, marking a rare intervention since former President Donald Trump suspended most aid through the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The US Mission to Nigeria announced the funding in a statement on Wednesday, saying it would provide food and nutritional support to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in conflict-affected areas.
According to the Mission, the aid will benefit more than 764,000 people across Nigeria’s northeast and northwest. It includes “complementary nutrition top-ups for 41,569 pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls, and 43,235 children through electronic food vouchers.”
Nigeria is facing an escalating humanitarian emergency. In July, World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Director for West Africa, Margot van der Velden, warned that insecurity and funding shortfalls had plunged the country into “an unprecedented hunger crisis” that could leave over 1.3 million people without food and force the closure of 150 nutrition clinics in Borno State.
The crisis is mirrored across West and Central Africa, where WFP in July suspended food aid in several countries following global funding cuts. Stocks in most of the affected nations were expected to run out around September, threatening millions of vulnerable people.
In Nigeria, worsening insecurity has deepened the crisis. Recent months have seen a rise in attacks in the northwest and north-central regions, where farmer-herder clashes over scarce resources have intensified. In June, at least 150 people were killed in an attack in north-central Nigeria.
The northeast remains gripped by a decade-long insurgency that has killed about 35,000 civilians and displaced more than 2 million people, according to the United Nations.
