Following the Nigerian Government's request through an official letter to the President of the ECOWAS Commission dated 24 September 2016 requesting for support for the populations of the North-East of Nigeria in a food and nutrition crisis, ECOWAS, in consultation with its partners, responded positively by mobilizing cereals from the Food Reserve. A quantity of 1,130 tons of cereals (730 tons of millet, 200 tons of maize and 200 tons of sorghum) was delivered on 8 August 2017 to NEMA (National Emergency Management Agency) for the populations of Borno, Gombe, Adamawa and Yobe States. A second contribution of 690 tons of rice is progress to better meet the eating habits of the assisted populations. Thus, the total support of ECOWAS and its partners will be 1820 tons of cereals.

While receiving the cereals on August 8 2017 on behalf of the Government of Nigeria, NEMA’s Director General, Mr Mustapha Maihajja and the acting Director of NEMA Assistance and Rehabilitation, Mr Kayode Fagbemi, expressed their gratitude to the ECOWAS Commission and the European Union, the financial partner of the Food Security Storage Support project for this humanitarian assistance.

As a reminder, the assessment of the food and nutrition situation carried out in August 2016 with the Harmonized Framework tool in the three (03) States of the North East of Nigeria (Adamawa, Borno and Yobe) affected by the food and nutrition crisis showed that 4,448,000 people of whom 65 000 were at risk of starvation.