The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has emphasized the critical need for immediate humanitarian, social protection, and food system responses to address the ongoing food crisis in the country.
The NESG highlighted the severity of the situation in a policy brief titled “Status of Food Security: Assessing the Crisis, Policy Options, and Strategic Responses,” released yesterday.
The NESG report revealed a stark increase in the number of food-insecure individuals, soaring from 66.2 million in Q1 2023 to a staggering 100 million in Q1 2024, as reported by the World Food Programme (2024).
Among them, 18.6 million Nigerians are grappling with acute hunger, while 43.7 million exhibit crisis-level or higher coping strategies for hunger as of March 2024.
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Additionally, the National Food Systems Profile uncovered critical institutional, policy, and industrial coordination and governance gaps exacerbating the crisis.
The NESG stressed the urgent need for Nigeria to address persistent structural vulnerabilities and socio-economic challenges. With an estimated 133 million people experiencing extreme multidimensional poverty, characterized by significant regional disparities, the NESG recommended deploying urgency, tenacity, and declaring a national state of emergency to address these issues effectively.
“The number of food-insecure Nigerians increased significantly, from 66.2 million in Q1 2023 to 100 million in Q1 2024 (World Food Programme, 2024), with 18.6 million facing acute hunger and 43.7 million Nigerians showing crisis-level or above crisis-level hunger coping strategies as of March 2024.”
