Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, has said a United Nations joint delegation will visit Maiduguri, Bama and Abuja first week of October, to scale up its humanitarian intervention in the terrorism-affected areas.
Onyeama said this in an interview with newsmen after a meeting with the UN team leaders on the sidelines of the 73rd UN General Assembly in New York.
The minister said that the team would be led by the UNDP Administrator, Mr Achim Steiner and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Head of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Mr Mark Lowcock.
He said that the joint UN Development Programme Principal-level mission was part of the world ogranisation’s efforts to support the victims of Boko Haram insurgency in the region.
Onyeama said that the visit was a sequel to the High-Level Conference on the Lake Chad Basin Crisis in Berlin in September, where the international community committed to a comprehensive crisis response in the region.
Onyeama said that the visit was aimed at discussing with senior government and donor officials in Nigeria on how to further strengthen humanitarian and development responses, including national and local ownership in the northeast.
“We are looking essentially on how to build on the humanitarian programme and the UN has been very involved and supportive on the humanitarian front in the northeast
“We realised that we have to move towards the development stage. They also want to hear from the Nigerian government.
“And of course, it is about the reconstruction, rehabilitation and resettlement; it is about creating an environment for economic growth which will require education and also jobs,” he said.
The UN had said in a statement that the objectives of the joint UNDP-OCHA Principal-level mission, was to address humanitarian, resilience and stabilisation needs of communities to prevent a protracted crisis in the northeast.
“The urgency to make progress on the New Way of Working by the UN Country Team and the Humanitarian Country Teams has been amplified by large-scale humanitarian needs and the related imperative to address the root causes of the Lake Chad Basin crises in a comprehensive and sustainable way.
“Accordingly, the Nigeria UNCT/HCTs are jointly working on formulating collective outcomes which will guide planning and interventions of humanitarian and development actors,“ he said.
