FG Partners World Food Programme to Tackle Malnutrition in North-east

The federal government on Wednesday said it would partner World Food Programme (WFP) on food security, poverty alleviation, education and health in the Northeastern states affected by insurgency.

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadia Umar Farouq, disclosed this when a delegation of WFP, led by Paul Howe, paid her a courtesy visit in Abuja.

Farouq noted that the government was concerned about poverty alleviation, education, health and malnutrition facing children and the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the North-east region in almost two decades of the Boko Haram insurgency in the region.

She stressed the need for World Food Programme to support the federal government effort, especially in security and capacity building of personnel, to enable them tackle malnutrition challenges in the affected areas.

The minister also stressed the need to improve on the Social Investment Programme (SIP), Home Grown School Feeding Programme of the Buhari administration aimed at feeding primary school pupils in different states across the country.

According to her, “In the area of Social Investment Programme of the government, l am sure you are aware that the federal government has a programme that is running which is targeted at primary school pupils (primary one to three). They are being given a meal per day and the nutrition of this food is very important to us. So we are going to explore this area to see how we can improve on what we have on ground.

“The ministry is new as you are aware and we have key priority areas that we want to focus on. Our immediate focus now will be on developing policies and institutional framework, and we are also going to focus on evidence database system because it is only when we have that that we can efficiently take this intervention to these affected population."

Farouq also emphasised that the Humanitarian Ministry would focus on post-emergency construction and rehabilitation of the displaced population through its agencies that are in charge of some of these responsibilities.

In his remark, Howe commended the minister on her numerous achievements since she assumed office, noting that the establishment of the ministry and the work already done had made a very huge impact in the North-east region.

He also assured her that WFP would support and work with the Nigerian Government to strengthen its partnership in tackling prevalent food crisis facing the IDPs in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States.