Northern Nigeria residents are becoming poorer, food insecure and more vulnerable to the vicissitude of fortune as a result of worsening insecurity ravaging the region, according to a study conducted by Save the Children International (SCI).

In the report entitled “Addressing Food Insecurity and Livelihood, the SCI said that from its work in the North East and other northern states, it has observed unabating insecurity has exposed northerners to dire living conditions.

The Country Director of SCI, Mr Famari Barro, while speaking at a three-day National Advocacy on Household Economy Analysis (HEA) workshop, in Abuja, said that the North is getting poorer and vulnerable.
 
He stated that the HEA baselines conducted in Borno, Yobe, Jigawa, Bauchi, Kastina and Zamfara states indicated that poorer households comprise at least 74 per cent of the population that are unable to access their minimum energy requirements in a sustainable manner, leading to chronic and acute malnutrition in children.

Barro said: “SCI is concerned about early warning systems in Nigeria with focus on the food security situation in the country, which is why it is building the capacity of local civil societies to report food crisis situations in the states that they are working so as to help donor organisations to channel their funds to meet the demands of their target beneficiaries.

The HEA Coordinator for Save the Children, Mr. Nelson Yidawi, in his presentation stated that SCI has been developing Early Warning Systems on food security situations across 16 states in the last 10 years. They however saw the need to build the capacity of CSOs and government, and we are also looking at the sustainability of early warning systems in Nigeria.