UN Raises the Alarm over $159m Funding Gap, Says Millions May Miss Lifesaving Aid
Michael Olugbode in Abuja
The United Nations has warned that millions of Nigerians facing food insecurity, malnutrition and disease outbreaks could miss critical humanitarian assistance as the country’s 2026 humanitarian response grapples with a $159 million funding shortfall.
The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Mohamed Fall, raised the alarm yesterday in Maiduguri as the United Nations marked World Humanitarian Day and called for urgent additional support from international donors, the Nigerian government, the private sector and other stakeholders.
Fall said Nigeria’s Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan had been severely underfunded despite the growing scale of humanitarian needs, with hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people at risk of losing access to lifesaving assistance during the remainder of the year.
“Needs continue to rise faster than available resources,” Fall said, stressing that current funding represented only a fraction of what was available to humanitarian operations in previous years.
The warning came after Fall and members of the UN and Humanitarian Country Teams visited nutrition and cholera treatment centres in Maiduguri, where they met health workers, humanitarian personnel, caregivers and patients.
The delegation witnessed first-hand the humanitarian response to the crisis in Nigeria’s northeast, which reached almost 900,000 people during the first half of 2026 despite dwindling financial resources.
According to the UN, $135.5 million has so far been distributed in 2026 through the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund and the Central Emergency Response Fund to respond to emergencies across the country.
However, additional contributions are urgently required to bridge the funding gap and sustain critical interventions as humanitarian needs intensify during the lean and rainy seasons.
Fall particularly highlighted the situation in Borno, where government authorities, health workers and humanitarian organisations have mounted a coordinated response to an ongoing cholera outbreak.
He disclosed that more than 55,000 cholera patients had been treated, while hygiene promotion services had reached more than one million people.