Crystal Charles
The United States has approved a $32.5 million aid package to support Nigeria in combating hunger, marking a rare policy shift since President Donald Trump suspended most U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) assistance.
According to a statement from the U.S. Mission to Nigeria on Wednesday, the funding will provide food and nutritional support to internally displaced persons in conflict-affected areas.
Insecurity and funding cuts have plunged northern Nigeria into what the World Food Programme (WFP) described in July as “an unprecedented hunger crisis.” The agency warned that over 1.3 million people risk starvation in Borno State alone, where as many as 150 nutrition clinics face closure.
The WFP had earlier suspended food assistance across parts of West and Central Africa following steep U.S. and global aid reductions, warning that food stocks for most affected countries would run out by September.
The U.S. mission said the new donation would reach 764,205 people across Nigeria’s northeast and northwest. Beneficiaries will include 41,569 pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls, as well as 43,235 children, who will receive electronic food vouchers and nutrition supplements.
Nigeria is grappling with multiple security crises that continue to fuel hunger. In June, about 150 people were killed in an attack in north-central Nigeria, while the northeast remains plagued by an insurgency that has claimed 35,000 lives and displaced more than two million people, according to the United Nations.