Norway, FAO commit $1.4m to food security in North-East

The Norwegian Government has provided 1.4 million dollars to the Food and Agriculture (FAO) to address food insecurity in affected regions of North-East Nigeria.

Svein Baera, Ambassador of Norway to Nigeria, during the signing ceremony on Wednesday in Abuja, assured of additional funds to alleviate the plights of people in the North-East region of the country.

“We are living in a time now where the global aid is going down; some countries have been forced for various reasons to cut their aid budgets.

“That means that even tougher priorities are taking place, both in Nigeria and in many other countries.

“In this situation, I am proud and very happy to say that Norway has been able to find additional funds for the FAO in Nigeria to help feed the people who need help in several states,” Baera assured.

Dominique Kouacou, the FAO representative in Nigeria and ECOWAS, said with the financial boost, FAO would scale up efforts towards providing the affected communities the necessary support to recover and thrive in spite of prevailing crisis and natural disasters.

He assured that FAO would carry trainings to enable farmers boost produce to end hunger.

Kouacou commended the support from Norway to FAO and promised that every dollar received by the organisation would go into achieving food security in the country.

“We have been able to support more than 700,000 people from the North-East to address several agricultural activities, and to attain food security.

“In January, we planned to address 50 farmers but with the funding constraints, we were able to assist just 25 farmers.

“Now, with the funding, FAO will be able to assist more farmers in the area of fertiliser and provision of seedlings,” he said.

The support will spread across Borno, Adamawa, Yobe and Taraba States to enhance food production and climate resilience. (NAN)