Nigeria is to benefit from the $280 million pledged to address the malnutrition crisis in 17 worst hit countries.
According to information gathered, Nigeria is to get $22 million from the contributed $200 million.
The donations were made at the 77th annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) , an event co-hosted by UNICEF, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), and the government of Senegal, which held at the UNICEF headquarters in New York recently.
USAID Administrator Samantha Power, said out of the $200m contributed, $22m will be allocated to UNICEF Nigeria to accelerate and expand the coverage of services for early detection and treatment of severe forms of child wasting in fragile contexts in the conflict-affected local government areas of Sokoto, Zamfara, and Katsina States in North-West Nigeria.
“The truth is that the majority of children facing severe malnutrition, nearly two-thirds of children, live in places that don’t normally receive humanitarian aid,”
“We are working to change that, to recognize that treatment for severe malnutrition should be accessible not just in humanitarian settings, but in non-crisis settings as well.” Power said.
Severe wasting – which makes children dangerously thin – is the most visible and lethal form of undernutrition. Weakened immune systems increase the risk of death among children under 5 by up to 11 times compared to well-nourished children.
