By Patrick Andrew
Abuja
Nigeria has appealed for global support for its effort to deal with and end the humanitarian challenges in the North-east of country and the surrounding Lake Chad region.
The country made the appeal in Oslo, Norway, yesterday at a two-day international conference she jointly sponsored with Germany, and in close collaboration with the United Nations, a statement signed by Akpandem James, the Media Adviser to the Hon. Minister said.
Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, who is leading the Nigerian delegation, said global support was necessary because of years of violent conflicts that left degraded infrastructure and serious humanitarian challenges on the area and parts of Niger Republic, Chad and Cameroon.
“The Government of Nigeria and the rest of the International community need to pull resources to assuage the situation, to bring to an end this humanitarian crisis,” she stressed.
She said $1.054 billion would be required to fund the 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan, but noted that less than 10 per cent of it “is currently being funded, and thus requires concerted fund-raising to meet the targets.”
She said in 2016, $2.77 billion worth of budgetary resources were earmarked for the same purpose, with needs still remaining high.
Already, she said the federal government and the six North Eastern States made a provision of N792,685,898,375 (about USD2.6 billion) in the 2017 budget proposals to address, among others, the problems of health, nutrition, education, security and also the reconstruction of infrastructure destroyed during Boko Haram attacks in the region.
“The total amount required to fund the 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) is $1.054 billion. Currently, less than 10 percent of the plan has been funded, thus highlighting the need for rigorous fund-raising in order to meet targets.
“What we need to succeed in 2017 is sustained engagement and support from all humanitarian actors, improved communication at all levels, access facilitation, human resources and sufficient funding to cover the cost of implementing the HRP.”
Foreign ministers of countries in the affected region, representatives of the African and European Unions, representatives of donor countries, and heads of United Nations bodies are participating in the conference.
