The Acting Representative of Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO)
in Nigeria, Al Hassan Cisse; has said the livelihood support
activities have reduced significantly vulnerable population under food
insecurity by 9.43 per cent.
The reduction, according to him, was in spite of recent resurgence of
armed conflict threats in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.
Cisse disclosed this Saturday, while presenting results for the 2020
March Cadre Harmonise (CH) analysis for Adamawa, Borno, Bauchi and
Yobe states in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.
Cisse, who represented by Ali Hassen, said that CH has been a regional
framework for consensual analysis of acute food insecurity situation
in West African countries.
According to him; “The exercise, which has now been adopted by Nigeria
Food Security Stakeholders since 2015, aims at applying the outcome of
the analysis in preventing food crisis.”
He explained that food crises prevention could be achieved; by
identifying areas affected and populations as well as proffering
appropriate measures towards improved food and nutrition security and
livelihoods.
“I am pleased to inform you that the subsequent CH analysis results in
Nigeria have become the major yardstick for estimating the areas and
population of vulnerable people in needs of humanitarian assistance,”
he said; adding that this was presented in the annual Humanitarian
Needs Overviews (HNOs) and Humanitarian Response Plans (HRPs) in the
three emergency north east states.
He also reminded the stakeholders and participants of the last October
analysis, which indicates 9.43 per cent of people facing acute food
insecurity in the three insurgency affected states.
“Food insecurity in Northeast; has significantly reduced from 2.97
million people in June last year to 2.68 million in last quarter of
2019,” he said, stating that there was a decrease of 9.43 per cent in
food insecurity among 280, 000 people.
He said the livelihood support activities in the three states have
contributed significantly to reduction in vulnerable population under
food insecurity.
Hassan noted that this was despite of recent resurgence of armed
conflict threat in hard to reach areas.
While speaking on food security, he said: “We’ll continue to work with
others partners in the provision of livelihood assistance to the
vulnerable group already identified.
“The FAO and its partners (CILSS, FEWSNET, WFP and others); are proud
to be associated with the successes recorded in the application of
the new 2.0 CH Manual tools to assess the level of food insecurity
across the three Northeast states.”
He also noted the emergence of new crops of smart and skilled analysts
from diverse background; including the recent CH certification
training in Kano.
He urged the Federal Government not only continue to sustain the
conduct of CH analysis, but also putting measures in place to
institutionalize the CH process.
According to him, the CH analysis is part of the early warning system
in the country.
He warned that the issues of paucity of food and nutrition data and
accounting for the partially and inaccessible LGAs and population on
analysis chart.
He said federal and state governments the states must commit more
resources for the data collection and sponsorship of the CH process.
“There is inadequate commitment of states and federal government to
fund data collection and sponsorship of the CH process,” he lamented.
