The International Donor Conference on Boko Haram holding in Berlin, Germany has pledged 2.52 billion dollars to help countries in Lake Chad Basin to fight Boko Haram insurgency.
Germany Foreign Ministry said the aid would be disbursed “in the coming years” to Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon, where the jihadist group launched frequent suicide bomb attacks from its bases in Lake Chad.
The two-day conference, which is being attended by more than 70 states, international organisations and non-government organisations, raised 672 million dollars in 2017.
The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator and Head, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Mr. Mark Lowcock, thanked the donors.
He said: “Your contribution at the Lake Chad Berlin conference will help us deliver life-saving humanitarian assistance throughout the Lake Chad Basin.
“This support is crucial to ensuring that life-saving assistance reaches those in need.”
The conference focused on humanitarian assistance, civilian protection, crisis prevention and stabilisation for the region and sought to raise 1.56 billion dollars, while Lowcock had projected more than one billion dollars.
Donations and pledges by countries as monitored by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) were Germany, the host country, 265 million Euros and Norway, 125 million dollars.
Others are United States, 420 million dollars; Switzerland, 20 million dollars; France, 131 million Euros; Belgium, 45 million Euros; Finland, 2.3 million Euros and Denmark, 72.5 million.
NAN reports that the United Kingdom donated 146 million pounds; Canada, 68 million dollars; European Union, 231.5 million Euros; Luxembourg , 40 million Euros and Spain, 3.2 million Euros.
Lowcock said famine was averted in the region last year due to international aid, adding that millions of people in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon were still in need of help.
The UN humanitarian chief, however, cautioned that “the crisis is not over. There are still 10 million people who need life-saving assistance.
“A quarter of the people we are trying to reach are displaced from their homes and the only means of staying alive is if they have is what is provided by humanitarian organisations.”
Achim Steiner, head of UN Development Programme, warned that more people could flee the region unless the international community took action to help them for the long-term.
Ahead of the 2018 conference, about 10 non-government organisations (NGOs) active in the Lake Chad region, said 11 million people were in need of humanitarian aid.