UK's Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office funds humanitarian help in northeast Nigeria

BRITAIN'S Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has provided funding for a humanitarian project aimed at improving the survival rate of children affected by the brutal conflict in northeast Nigeria.

Under the scheme, the UK is assisting through the provision of food, nutrition sanitation and protection services that will empower over 300,000 mothers and caregivers. This intervention, funded by the Foreign Office's Multisectoral Integrated Nutrition Action project, is being implemented by the United Nations Children’s Fund and other partners in 24 local government areas of Borno and Yobe states until March 2025.

This project leverages a bouquet of essential services and community structures to provide integrated essential services for children. This includes birth registration and immunisation services, nutrition counselling, cash transfer support, establishment of vegetable gardens, market-based sanitation and hygiene interventions, mothers’ groups, nutrition mobilisers and water, sanitation and hygiene committees.

Cristian Munduate, the Unicef representative in Nigeria, said the overarching aims of the intervention which is to enhance dietary practices, home-based malnutrition screening skills, provision of high impact lifesaving nutrition interventions (such as early identification and referral of acute malnutrition cases for treatment), and micronutrients supplementation, will help in the prevention of infections among children. He explained that implementation of the intervention will see roving midwives deployed to hard to reach areas to improve the nutrition status and overall wellbeing of the most disadvantaged children.

According to data from Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey and National Immunization Coverage Survey, approximately one in four children aged between 12 and 23 months is not vaccinated, in northeast Nigeria. Apparently, the region has one of the highest numbers of unvaccinated children in Nigeria.

Also, data from the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: National Outcome Routine Mapping shows that only 4% of the population in Borno and 2% in Yobe have access to safely managed drinking water. Up to 1.1m people across the region still practice open defecation, a risk factor for malnutrition and stunting in children.

Mr Munduate said: “The first 1,000 days of life of a child is an unmatched window of opportunity. Unicef is grateful for the support of the FCDO to invest early in the lives of some of the most vulnerable children in the world."