Photo: Dr Edu, 2nd right, and the OCHA delegation in her office during the visit.
Minister seeks coordination of development partners to address humanitarian challenges
The Minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu Federal has called on development partners, including the United Nations agencies providing humanitarian services in Nigeria to be properly coordinated by the government and to make decisions during planning for 2024 based on priorities of Government.
Edu made this known when she received in audience, Sofie Thomie, Deputy Director Operations and Advocacy Division, West and Central Africa, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in her office on Wednesday.
She said that the era of rendering duplicating humanitarian services and wasting minimal resources in the country was over, adding that the era of working in silos must stop because the solution was to pull together to effectively use the little resources available to solve humanitarian crises in 2024.
The Minister said the Nigerian government would henceforth take the lead in humanitarian situation reviews using dashboards and implementation of operations in the country to provide a coordinated response and durable solutions to humanitarian challenges in the country.
Edu said: “We need to make joint decisions, Government must be on the driver’s seat, we don’t want to be informed and communicated but we must plan together and implement together that way we can hold each other accountable for what goes on in the field.
“The era of duplication of functions and services in the humanitarian space is over. We need to stop working in silo but integrate and coordinate among all the different development partners in Nigeria.”
According to the Minister, in the last cabinet retreat, performance targets were set for all the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies of Government. “We must not fail!” She added.
Edu disclosed that her Ministry would be organizing quarterly meetings with all the development partners and agencies rendering services in the humanitarian space. This she said would help with proper planning and coordination of activities on the field.
She explained that there would be a dashboard where the operations of all development partners would be known and seen as well as their impacts on the humanitarian field measured, with a feed back mechanism following proper monitoring and evaluation of programs.
The Minister who lauded the efforts of the UN agencies in Nigeria on Humanitarian response, pointed out that after the first meeting, which would hold soon, she would go to field assessment operations with all the development partners to enable them to see things for themselves, as part of the government’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
She also called for immediate deployment of humanitarian services to Benue State, saying the situation there needed urgent attention and immediate action.
Earlier, Sofie who led the delegation, thanked the Minister for the work she was doing for Nigerians affected by humanitarian crises.
She told the Minister that they came to appreciate President Tinubu’s agenda on humanitarian response and Poverty Alleviation and to further ascertain the humanitarian needs in the Bornu, Adamawa, and Yobe(BAY)States in the Northeast.
“I am here to see the Honourable Minister and to better understand the situation, the latest developments here in Nigeria, and how we work to support the government in addressing humanitarian concerns.
“We’ve had very good exchanges on the current humanitarian situation and the developments, in particular in the northeast of Nigeria, and the concerns across Nigeria about the many challenges that the humanitarian actors are faced with as well as in the efforts that are made to reach people who need assistance and of protection.
“And we’ve had very good discussions around how these challenges can be addressed and how we can work together to be even more effective in what we do in a joined-up manner,” she said.
Speaking specifically on Benue, Sofie said, ” We had a very good exchange also about Benue and what can be done in the area and potential support that could be provided. We are, of course, looking at what types of support we can immediately provide to beef up government efforts,” she added.
Also speaking, the UN OCHA Head of Office in Nigeria, Troud Jensen, explained that the Agency has been providing support to those affected by the humanitarian crisis in Adamawa, Yobe, Borno states.
Troud noted that despite investing $50 million in nutrition and social services, the IDPs are still in need of humanitarian support.
He said that OCHA was willing to provide $440 million in 2024 to alleviate the sufferings of those affected by humanitarian crises in the BAY states.
“We will provide humanitarian assistance and support the country to mobilize resources, we have plans in the Northeast in areas of nutrition, security, climate change, and provision of shelter.”
He explained that the agency had mapped out funds to support the Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation Trust Fund with the intervention of extending the support to other parts of Nigeria.
“This year, we have reached out to 3.4 million people in terms of provision of nutrition, shelter, and water,” he added.
