*As WFP: commits $2.5 billion to alleviate hunger in Nigeria
By Tina Abeku, Abuja
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu, has said that plans are underway to establish ‘humanitarian hubs’ across the 774 Local Government Areas, (LGAs), in Nigeria.
She made this known while hosting a team from the World Food Programme on a courtesy visit to her office in Abuja.
The minister said over 133 million Nigerians are suffering from multidimensional poverty hence the federal government is constantly evolving ways to alleviate the scourge and that the humanitarian hubs are expected to make it easy to reach those most in need of humanitarian assistance quickly under the zero hunger initiative.
According to her, ‘Zero Hunger” is one of the projects the ministry has initiated as part of poverty and humanitarian response efforts.
“We have over 80,000 persons as refugees presently in Nigeria. The state I come from alone, there are over 40,000 refugees and these are just those who are registered.
“Part of the innovation which we are bringing on board is what we call humanitarian hub because we want to create 774 of these humanitarian hubs in each local government across Nigeria ” she adds.
Edu urged the visiting WFP team to key into the zero hunger initiative by working with her ministry to achieve results.
Earlier, Country Director, WFP Nigeria, David Stevenson, said the agency is willing to support Nigeria’s ‘Zero Hunger’ programme under the ministry.
He said the United Nations WFP has earmarked $2.5 billion to fight hunger in Nigeria in the next five years and has already captured 2.1 million Nigerians as target beneficiaries of the program and hopes to expand working with the minister of humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation.
“Let me announce here that the World Food Programme is committed to spending $2.5Billion To Fight Hunger in Nigeria in the next five years.
“I have been very impressed in such a short time to hear about the minister’s leadership, putting together the strategy for the ministry.
“We talked about zero hunger, we talked about the humanitarian hubs in every local government area in the country, we talked about the world food programs, the potential to support those hubs through buying food locally and also assisting in the cash transfer and food, These are very impressive,” he said in a statement signed by the Special Assistant to the Minister on Media and Publicity, Rasheed Zubair.
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