Abuja, Nigeria – The U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, James F. Entwistle, today announced the awarding of a $10.5 million grant by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in humanitarian assistance for internally displaced populations in the northeast. The grants will support the activities of the United Nation’s Population Fund (UNFPA), UNICEF, and the World Health Organization (WHO) to improve access to health care services for affected populations in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states. With this new funding, total U.S. humanitarian assistance since the start of the crisis is nearly $44 million.

Speaking during the grants signing ceremony, Ambassador Entwistle said, “As we look forward to Nigeria’s success, the United States remains committed to extending our partnership to support the Nigerian people’s vision to accelerate this country’s economic and social development.”

USAID Mission Director Michael T. Harvey signed the grants with the three UN agencies in the presence of Ambassador Entwisle and the governors of Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe.

The funding will supply nutritional supplements for malnourished children, health care services to those living in camps and with host communities, clean water and sanitation, hygiene supplies, and protection services to affected populations.

USAID, the United States government’s lead foreign assistance agency, is supporting several humanitarian, transitional, and longer-term development activities in northeastern Nigeria, totaling $137 million, in collaboration with the Nigerian government at the federal, state, and local levels. Current and forthcoming activities will improve governmental capacity and performance, strengthen food security and water policy, expand the reach and effectiveness of health and education initiatives, and provide services for internally displaced persons in northeast Nigeria. USAID efforts in the northeast are focused in Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, and Yobe states.

Roles of the UN agencies

UNFPA will provide sexual reproductive health interventions that will restore access to these services, provide gender and culturally appropriate psychosocial counseling and support to survivors of sexual violence in affected communities, and increase awareness for the prevention of sexual violence. UNFPA will also offer protection of the dignity of women and girls through the provision of hygiene kits and will develop capacity for improved implementation of sexual reproductive health services in emergencies. UNFPA will also strengthen the capacity of institutions on data collection and use.

UNICEF will provide quality interventions aimed at saving the lives of the mother, newborn, and child. The approach will be low-cost, but high-impact interventions such as access to vaccines, antibiotics, nutrition supplements, anti-malarial commodities, and promoting improved breastfeeding, safe water, sanitation and hygiene practices.

WHO will marshal and leverage 65 existing mobile health teams supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant to provide integrated services in internally displaced camps and more than 2,300 hard-to-reach communities in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe. WHO will also facilitate and coordinate staff training on emergency obstetric and newborn care, community-based management of childhood illnesses such as diarrhea, preventing mother to child transmission of HIV, nutrition mentoring, immunization and surveillance.

For additional information, please contact Josephine Kamara at jkamara@usaid.gov

USAID PROGRAMS IN NORTHEASTERN NIGERIA

OVERVIEW

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United States government’s lead development agency, is supporting a set of humanitarian, transitional, and longer-term development activities in Northeastern Nigeria totaling $137 million*, in collaboration with the Government of Nigeria at the federal, state, and local levels. Current and forthcoming activities will improve government capacity and performance; strengthen food security and water policy; expand the reach and effectiveness of health and education initiatives; and provide services for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in northeast Nigeria. USAID efforts in the northeast are focused in the states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, and Yobe.

Summary

HUMANITARIAN AND FOOD ASSISTANCE: $18.2 MILLION

• Support IDPs and host communities with needed health, water/sanitation protection, and non-food assistance
• Emergency food assistance and nutrition messaging to vulnerable, conflict-affected populations. Cash and voucher programming aims to meet immediate food needs, increase dietary diversity, and prevent malnutrition in children
• Psycho-social counseling for escapees from Boko Haram captivity + their families

TRANSITIONAL ASSISTANCE: $9.9 MILLION

• Activities will improve stability in areas most directly affected by the Boko Haram insurgency

GOVERNANCE: PLANNED: $5 MILLION*

• Local Government Activity – Builds accountable and effective local institutions

HEALTH: PLANNED: $66 MILLION*

• Comprehensive HIV/AIDS services
• Polio eradication – Supports vaccination programs for IDPs
• Improving delivery of primary health care
• Expanding reach of routine immunization

EDUCATION: PLANNED: $32 MILLION*

• Crisis Response – Improves educational opportunities for IDPs and host communities
• Northern Nigeria Education Initiative – Addresses deficiencies in northern education systems
• Reading and Access Research Project – Supports development and testing of instructional approaches to reading
• Safe Schools Initiative – Focuses on bolstering the physical protection of 500 schools.

ECONOMIC GROWTH: PLANNED: $6.5 MILLION*

• Agriculture – Supports development of rice value chains in Taraba State
• Livelihoods – Provides training in microenterprise development and best practices of nutrition and hygiene.
• Famine Early Warning System – Analyzes current and projected food insecurity trends, and tracks market prices of food commodities

* Subject to availability of funds Detailed Sector activities

HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE

As of September 2014, USAID committed more than $7 million to aid conflict-affected populations in northeastern Nigeria. USAID supports Nigeria’s national and state emergency management agencies to improve data collection, monitoring, and information dissemination for humanitarian programs assisting internally displaced persons (IDPs), as well as tracking of other population movements.

In Yobe State, USAID is improving targeted populations’ access to relief items and water and sanitation services. USAID’s implementing partner is also increasing vulnerable people’s purchasing power while protecting and restoring livelihoods. This 12-month activity aims to assist 14,000 people, of whom half are estimated to be IDPs.

In Borno State, USAID is providing psychosocial support for girls and women who have escaped Boko Haram captivity, captives and escapees’ family members, as well as other populations affected by conflict and gender-based violence.

In Adamawa State, USAID is supporting critical humanitarian assistance, including gender-based violence prevention and treatment services; water, sanitation and health (WASH) services, and emergency relief commodities, for IDPs and other vulnerable households. The 12-month activity aims to reach 62,000 people, including approximately 23,250 IDPs.

In Gombe State, a 15-month activity aims to improve economic resilience and food security among conflict-affected populations by strengthening populations’ capacity to meet basic needs. The activity targets nearly 94,000 people, of whom approximately 56,270 are IDPs.

Since October 1, 2014, USAID provided $11.2 million in food assistance to support approximately 69,500 individuals in Gombe, Yobe and Adamawa States. Displaced populations and host community members are provided with cash or food vouchers to help meet their immediate food needs, supported by sensitization and nutrition messaging. The programs target geographic areas based on the IDP caseload and their impact on host communities, prioritizing households with IDPs, pregnant/lactating women and children under the age of five. One program will provide vouchers-for-work as a second phase of the intervention to help rebuild and strengthen community assets. These activities are expected to run for approximately one year.

USAID provides psycho-social first aid for women and young girls abducted by Boko Haram, most notably girls from the town of Chibok. Christian and Muslim women use the skills received during training to help traumatized individuals from Chibok and the wider communities. In collaboration with federal and state governments and the International Organization for Migration, treatment and services are available to trauma victims. In addition to the practical healing process, participants are helping citizens in the northeast manage the effects of trauma and stress.

TRANSITIONAL ASSISTANCE

USAID has launched the North-East Regional Transition Initiative to improve stability and strengthen democratic institutions in northeast Nigeria. The initiative focuses on building the resistance of communities vulnerable to the effects of the Boko Haram insurgency, weak governance, and insecurity by increasing positive engagement between government and communities, increasing access to credible information; and supporting activities to reduce youth vulnerability to recruitment to illegal armed groups.

GOVERNANCE

USAID’s Leadership, Empowerment, Advocacy, and Development activity, in Bauchi State, builds accountable and effective local institutions through capacity strengthening for improved service delivery. This effort is founded on the premise that failure of institutions of governance, formal and non-formal, was a key factor in the genesis of the Boko Haram insurgency. Boko Haram has been shown to avoid attacking or attempting to take over municipalities with significant governance capacity. This program will migrate to one or two SOE states as security permits.

HEALTH

USAID’s HIV/AIDs program is working to provide comprehensive provision of HIV services to the general public. USAID is prepared for immediate psycho-social support if the Chibok girls are released.

USAID supports the Nigeria Polio Elimination Program, which strives to reach all children under age five in every northern Nigerian state. In Borno and Yobe states, the polio program focuses on municipalities with low polio immunization coverage.

USAID programming is also strengthening the delivery of primary health care in the region. We partner with the Commissioners of Health, State Primary Health Care Development Agency, and the Commissioners of Local Government Areas to improve antenatal care and deliveries, newborn care, routine immunization, malaria prevention, diagnostic and treatment services, and other common child health illnesses. In addition to clinic-based services, community-based interventions provide all pregnant women, newborns and children under age five with life-saving essential medicines, long-lasting insecticide treated nets, and referrals to primary health care centers.

A new activity will begin routine immunization strengthening interventions in Bauchi state by early 2015. USAID, in partnership with the Government of Bauchi State, the Aliko Dangote Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is improving routine immunization service coverage and use for all children under five in that state.

ECONOMIC GROWTH

USAID is improving incomes in Taraba State through its work within the rice value chain. The program is introducing improved agricultural practices to farmers and links farmers with processors so they can receive a steady supply of high-quality raw materials to bring to market.

In Federal Capital Territory, Nassarawa, Benue, Kaduna and Kano States USAID is providing training to improve livelihoods of 20,000 IDPs and their host communities. The training covers the fundamentals of microenterprise as well as nutrition and hygiene best practices.

USAID supports the Famine Early Warning Systems Network to monitor the level of food security throughout Nigeria. Market price data of food commodities are collected and monitored in the northeastern states to ensure knowledge of possible emergencies.

EDUCATION

USAID’s Education Crisis Response activity targets young IDPs and other youth whose education has been disrupted by Boko Haram violence in host communities. Activities will provide continuity to education, improve the quality of teaching and learning, increase equitable access, stabilize institutional capacity to deliver education, and integrate peacebuilding and safety into school communities.

The forthcoming Northern Nigeria Education Initiative Plus (NEI+) will work in up to three northern states to strengthen the management of the education sector, with the ultimate aim of increasing the number of students enrolled in appropriate and relevant educational environments, and improving reading outcomes for primary grade learners.

The ongoing Reading and Research Access Activity is focused on strengthening reading delivery sys¬tems in the local language in early grades in both non-formal and formal learning environments by supporting the development and testing of instructional approaches that teach foundational readings skills.

The Safe Schools Initiative, a Multi-Donor Trust Fund, will focus on school and community interventions, with special measures for the most at-risk and vulnerable children. The initiative will build community security groups to promote safe zones for education, consisting of teachers, parents, police, community leaders and young people themselves. In the longer-term, the initiative will focus on bolstering the physical protection of schools, providing school guards and police in partnership with Nigerian authorities, training staff as school safety officers, providing communications tools and school counselors.