The United States, through the U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID), has provided an
additional $9.5 million to the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) to
ensure more than 175,000 mothers and children under five do not
suffer from malnutrition during this year’s “lean” season.
The grant from USAID’s Health,
Population, and Nutrition Office, augments ongoing support for the
humanitarian assistance in Nigeria by its Office of Foreign Disaster
Assistance (OFDA) and Food for Peace (FFP), and seeks to bridge a
funding shortfall announced by WFP late last month. The grant will
fund a blanket supplementary feeding program to protect the nutrition
status of children aged six months to five years and lactating women
in IDP and host communities of Borno State through provision of
specialized nutritious foods.
“In response to the call by WFP to
meet a severe funding shortfall, USAID is pleased to play a part in
making sure that the most vulnerable of those impacted by the Boko
Haram conflict are taken care of,” USAID/Nigeria Mission Director
Stephen M. Haykin said. “This support will go to nine areas where
the needs of mothers and their children are the greatest.”
The assistance will help WFP reach an
additional 110,000 children under five and 65,000 pregnant and
nursing mothers with specialized nutritious food commodities in nine
local government areas (LGA) in Borno State.
WFP launched what is known as a Blanket
Supplementary Feeding Program aims to prevent the further decline in
nutritional status among young children suffering from moderate acute
malnutrition, as well as protect the nutritional status of others who
are not yet malnourished but are at high risk.
The program, which will distribute the
nutrient-rich food monthly through the end of the rainy, or “lean,”
season in August, is anticipated to significantly reduce the burden
on the health system related to treating malnutrition as well as
other health conditions related to under nutrition, consequently
preventing related mortality.
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