Food insecurity looms in northern Nigeria — UN

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) – Global Environment Facility (GEF) Wednesday said the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned that people in northern Nigeria are at risk of acute food insecurity.

The UN-FAO projected that an estimated 13 million people in the area face the risk of acute food insecurity in the next few months.

Project Manager, UNDP – GEF, in charge of Resilient Food Security Project, Rhoda Dia, stated this while speaking in an interview in Abuja.

Ms Dia said the warning had become imperative because the country was facing growing levels of acute food insecurity due to decades of insecurity across the country.

She said the insecurity had resulted in increasing poverty and economic crises.

Ms Dia added that the situation has been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and recently, the series of clashes between farmers and herders.

She stated that, women, girls and the elderly were the most vulnerable groups to climate change, adding that it was because they were highly exposed to climate risks.

Ms Dia said the adaptive capacity of these groups was low, which according to her was constrained by the poor quality of access to, and control of resources.

She warned that they were more likely to live in poverty, as they were traditionally excluded from the decision-making process at local, national, and international levels. (NAN)