Northeast Crisis Centre Stage As Donors Meet In Oslo

The first-ever international donor conference focusing on the crisis in the north east of Nigeria gets underway in Oslo, Norway this week in hopes of raising more than $1 billion to fund humanitarian response in the northeast and Lake Chad region.

The 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan for Nigeria seeks more than $1b targeted at the needs of 6.9 million people, considered critically affected Daily Trust report.

“We are hoping to raise more than this at the end of the Conference in Oslo,” said Edward Kallon, the United Nations resident coordinator and head of the UN Development Programme in Nigeria.

“A repeat of 2016 situation when activities were severely hampered by funding shortfall (only 53 per cent was received) will expose vulnerable children, women girls and youths to risks the country may fail to deal with in the future,” he said.

Kallon said the conference, hosted by Norway with Germany and Nigeria participating, will be “opportunity for Nigeria to tell the world the true extent of this crisis.”

Fourth largest crisis in the world

The international community is expected to make commitments to finance humanitarian response in the wake of the Oslo conference.

The northeast crisis is now officially the fourth largest humanitarian crisis in the world—after Syria, Yemen and Iraq, according to the UN.

At least 14m people are affected across the northeast and Lake Chad region.

Some 8.5m need assistance in the most-affected states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe. Without any assistance, some 400,000 children face sever acute malnutrition in Borno alone.

The $1b expected from the donor conference targets 6.9m critically affected, leaving the Nigerian government to handle the rest.

On a recent visit to the region, Kallon spoke of seeing “widespread suffering among the survivors of the insurgency – children with no food, widows with no source of livelihood, idling youths and hopeless communities.”

“Over 50% per cent of the displaced in the region are children. In an already economically deprived region, around 76 per cent of IDPs are staying with host communities placing a huge strain on infrastructure and resources.”

“Even with the current response by the humanitarian family on the ground, as more areas become liberated, the humanitarian needs are also rising.

“On our own, we will not be able to provide the support needed by these people.”

“Immediate funding is urgently required to support the scale-up of humanitarian operations,” Kallon added.

More than a million people displaced from their homes in the insurgency have returned to their local government areas of origin, mainly in Adamawa and Yobe since August 2015.

Their numbers have steadily increased but many are stranded in secondary displacement sites “because of ongoing insecurity, destroyed infrastructure and absence of basic services,” said Kallon.

The UN has urged authorities to ensure returns of people to their homes “safe and voluntary, well-informed based on up-to-date and accurate information, and respect people’s dignity.”

“There should be no forced returns, which would include the arbitrary closure of camps without guarantees of safety, access to basic services, critical infrastructure and humanitarian assistance,” noted Kallon.