The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, has said that 330,000 Nigerians refugees are presently residing in neighbouring countries due to the worsening insecurity in the country.
Farouq disclosed this on Saturday when she was hosted in a Chatham House Webinar to discuss Nigeria’s humanitarian challenges and worsening food crises in Nigeria.
The breakdown of the 330,000 Nigerian refugees in neighbouring countries, according to the minister, “consists 16,634 in Chad, 118,409 in Cameroon, while Niger Republic has 186,957.”
On steps taken to address the issue, Farouq said her ministry had launched two key frameworks aimed at boosting humanitarian actions and making them more practicable and impactful.
She said “The first is the Humanitarian Development Peace Nexus Framework, which is derived from the UN Triple Nexus principles that believes development causes peace and that humanitarian actions can bring about development.
“Second is the Localisation Framework, an initiative adopted after the commitment of stakeholders at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit to reenergise the concept of localisation of aid.
“The concept seeks to make the humanitarian system more effective and relevant by ensuring that humanitarian preparedness and response capacity is domiciled with those nearest to the crisis-affected populations as they are best placed to respond quickly and appropriately.”
Commenting on the approaches adopted by her ministry to mitigate sufferings caused by humanitarian situations leading to food crises in the country, the minister said, “The food security challenges in the North-East are peculiar due to the fluid and volatile situation in the region.
“Nevertheless, the ministry has been working effectively with both humanitarian stakeholders and the military to facilitate humanitarian access and promote accountability in the humanitarian space within the Civil-Security Framework and coordination platform.”
