UN to Close 150 Clinics in Nigeria as Aid Cuts Hit Food Relief

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The United Nations’ food agency will shut half of its clinics in Nigeria’s conflict-ravaged northeast region this month, as it begins winding down humanitarian support due to aid cuts, Bloomberg news reported yesterday.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it received no funding to continue food and nutrition support for 1.3 million people, despite an urgent appeal for $130 million to sustain operations through 2025.

Those Programmes will now end in August, and “the immediate and most brutal effect will be on child nutrition,” Chi Lael, head of communications at the WFP, said on Monday. Half of the 300 clinics “we run will be closed this month, cutting off lifesaving treatment for 300,000 children,” she added.

A record 31 million Nigerians are facing food insecurity, according to the UN, with nearly one-fifth in the insurgency-plagued northeast suffering from acute hunger.

Nigeria’s ministry of health didn’t immediately respond to questions about how it plans to fill the gap. This year, the federal government allocated just $326,000 for managing malnutrition and stunting in high-burden states.

The UN and other humanitarian agencies in Africa have seen a massive drop in donor funds, after US President Donald Trump slashed foreign aid. European countries are also diverting resources away from overseas assistance to support domestic priorities, the Bloomberg report stressed.

In July, Geneva-based Doctors Without Borders said that deadly child malnutrition was soaring in northern Nigeria due to a sharp drop in foreign aid.

“The fear is that when food assistance ends, so will stability in northern Nigeria,” said Lael. “And the longer this is left unfunded, the harder it will be to pull the region back,” Lael noted.