Abuja, 11 June 2015 - The World Health Organization (WHO) has joined the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and United Nation’s Population Fund (UNFPA) in the grant signing ceremony of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) of funded humanitarian programme titled “Integrated Humanitarian Assistance for North East Nigeria” held in Abuja on 11 June 2015.

During the event, the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, James F. Entwistle, announced the award of a $10.5 million grant by USAID in humanitarian assistance for internally displaced populations located in the north eastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe of Nigeria. The grant will support provision of a comprehensive package of basic health services to prevent excess neonatal, child and maternal mortality in the conflict-affected states. Planned activities will be implemented by WHO, UNFPA and UNICEF.

Strategic approaches to achieve the overarching  objective of the grant include: expand access to basic services (WASH, nutrition, Health and Protection) through mobile teams, outreaches and use of community resource persons for affected populations within and outside the internally displaced populations camps; strengthen capacity of existing health facilities to provide additional services for IDPs and host communities including immunization services and strengthen referral system to provide emergency MNCH care to women and new-born residing in areas with poor or no health care delivery system. .

The three Governors expressed gratitude to USAID for providing the financial contribution and to WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA for the technical support to implement the planned activities up to the end of 2016.

In conclusion, the Governors also expressed the  confidence that the on-going humanitarian crisis will soon come to an end. They further emphasized that insurgency in the north east of Nigeria is mainly associated with high levels of poverty. The governors however gave the assurance that government at all levels are doing their best to overcome the challenges and appealed to other development partners to emulate  the support from USAID, WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA.

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For more information, please contact:

Technical contacts:

Dr Joy Ufere; Email: uferej [at] who.int