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UN PhotoWFP / NIGERIA FUNDING SHORTFALL
STORY: WFP / NIGERIA FUNDING SHORTFALL
TRT: 2:00
SOURCE: WFP
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT WFP ON SCREEN
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / HAUSA / NATS
DATELINE: 15-22 JULY 2025, BORNO STATE, NIGERIA
15 JULY 2025, MIADUGURI
1. Various shots, general views of Muna Camp for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in northeast Nigeria where WFP is providing emergency food and nutrition assistance to families displaced by conflict. Millions are facing severe hunger due to violence, climate shocks, and soaring food prices.
22 JULY 2025, MIADUGURI
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Trust Mlambo, WFP Head of Programme in Maiduguri:
“As of now, all the warehouses of WFP are empty. And there is really a huge crisis because of the funding situation. And and we do.”
18 JULY 2025, MAFA
3. Various shots, WFP Distribution to people displaced by violence
22 JULY 2025, MIADUGURI
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Trust Mlambo, WFP Head of Programme in Maiduguri:
“This is coming at a very difficult time because we are at the middle of the lean season where the situation of food insecurity is the worst, and we have run out of funding to sustain the operations.”
18 JULY 2025, MAFA
5. Various shots, Yaanama Aji receiving food and bringing it home. Yaanama Aji was a farmer untill she was forced to flee her village when armed groups attacked and began killing and kidnapping people. Yaanama’s daughters were also taken.
22 JULY 2025, MIADUGURI
6. SOUNDBITE (Hausa) Yaanama Aji, Displaced mother of 6:
“Before we used to be farmers and we were able to feed ourselves. If the assistance stopped when everything was normal, we would've been able to go back to our farms but because of the fighting, our farms and communities are off-limits and dangerous. Going into the forests and farms puts you at risk of abduction so our very livelihoods are inaccessible.”
18 JULY 2025, MIADUGURI
7. Various shots, Zahra Bukar and her daughter Aisha at a malnutrition check-up. Zahra Bukar and her daughter Aisha receive regular support from this WFP Nutrition Centre, one of many that will shut down when funding runs out in August, spelling disaster for families who depend on them.
8. SOUNDBITE (Hausa) Zahra Bukar, 25-year-old mother of 2 children:
“I was enrolled into the programme for malnutrition treatment. As soon as we gave my daughter the ready to eat food, she has started to recover. Before she couldn't eat any food at all but after she began treatment, she started eating again and now plays and crawls around.”
9. Med shot, Zahra feeding her daughter
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) will be forced to suspend all emergency food and nutrition aid for 1.3 million people in northeast Nigeria at the end of July. This is due to critical funding shortfalls which come at a time of escalating violence and record levels of hunger.
WFP’s food and nutrition stocks have been completely exhausted. The organization’s last supplies left warehouses in early July and life-saving assistance will end after the current round of distributions is completed.
Without immediate funding, millions of vulnerable people will face impossible choices: endure increasingly severe hunger, migrate, or possibly risk exploitation by extremist groups in the region.
“Nearly 31 million people in Nigeria are now facing acute hunger, a record number,” said David Stevenson, WFP Country Director for Nigeria. “At the same time, WFP’s operations in northeast Nigeria will collapse without immediate, sustained funding. This is no longer just a humanitarian crisis, it’s a growing threat to regional stability, as families pushed beyond their limits are left with nowhere to turn.”
Children will be among the worst affected if vital aid ends. More than 150 WFP-supported nutrition clinics in Borno and Yobe states will close, ending potentially life-saving treatment for more than 300,000 children under two and placing them at increased risk of wasting.
In conflict-affected northern areas, escalating violence from extremist groups is driving mass displacement. Some 2.3 million people across the Lake Chad Basin have been forced to flee their homes, straining already limited resources and pushing communities to the brink.
“When emergency assistance ends, many will migrate in search of food and shelter. Others will adopt negative coping mechanisms – including potentially joining insurgent groups – to survive,” added Stevenson. “Food assistance can often prevent these outcomes. It allows us to feed families, help rebuild economies and support long-term recovery.”
In the first half of 2025, WFP has been able to hold hunger at bay across northern Nigeria, reaching 1.3 million people with life-saving food and nutrition assistance. Support for an additional 720,000 people was planned for the second half of the year before funding shortfalls put life-saving programmes in jeopardy.
WFP has the capacity and expertise to deliver and scale-up its humanitarian response, but the critical funding gap is paralyzing operations. WFP urgently requires US$130 million to prevent an imminent pipeline break and sustain food and nutrition operations through the end of 2025.
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