The World Food Programme (WFP) has expressed its commitment to support President Tinubu’s Zero Hunger Programme, which falls under the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation in Nigeria.
This commitment was made by the Country Director of WFP, David Stevenson, during a visit to the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu.
Stevenson revealed that 2.1 million Nigerians have already been identified as beneficiaries of the Zero Hunger Programme, and there are plans to expand this initiative in collaboration with the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.
The WFP pledged its support for various government efforts in humanitarian and poverty intervention, including food security and the Zero Hunger Programme.
The WFP expressed enthusiasm for President Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s government’s efforts to combat poverty and reduce humanitarian crises in Nigeria. They also commended the new energy and initiatives brought by Minister Dr. Betta Edu, expressing their commitment to working closely with her.
Stevenson noted that Dr. Edu’s appointment as Minister is well-deserved, and he praised her for swiftly launching humanitarian and poverty response programs. The WFP is dedicated to providing full support to these efforts.
“I’ve 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”
“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”, the WFP boss said.
Responding, Dr. Edu commended the WFP Country Director for the visit and the kind comments about her.
The Minister informed Stevenson that there are over 133 million people in Nigeria affected by multidimensional poverty, stressing that WFP’s intervention of $2.5Billion for five years “will go a long way to address some of the biggest challenges the country is facing, which is hunger”
According to the Minister, “Zero Hunger” is one of the projects her Ministry has initiated as part of poverty and humanitarian response efforts, and appealed to the WFP to key into it by working with the Ministry to achieve results.
Edu explained that Homegrown School Feeding is one aspect of the Zero Hunger Project, as the Ministry will be working on different nutritional programs that will target both pregnant women, children under five, school feeding, feeding of persons who are affected by humanitarian crises, aged and the persons of concern, “including refugees that have found themselves within our space”
“We have over 80,000 persons as refugees presently, in Nigeria. In 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 added.
