Abuja, December 4, 2025 – The United States has announced a $5 million donation to UNICEF to provide emergency nutrition support for tens of thousands of children suffering from acute malnutrition in Nigeria’s Northwest region.
The funding, announced Thursday by the U.S. Mission to Nigeria on behalf of the State Department, will enable UNICEF to deliver lifesaving treatment to at least 70,000 children under five who are battling severe acute malnutrition — the deadliest form of hunger.
The money will be used to purchase and distribute ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), essential medicines, antibiotics, and other critical supplies needed to treat children at risk of dying from hunger-related complications.
“This commitment to donate lifesaving assistance affirms U.S. global leadership, strength, and compassion,” the U.S. Mission stated.
Northwest Nigeria — encompassing states such as Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina, Kebbi, Kaduna, Kano, and Jigawa — has emerged as one of the country’s most severe malnutrition hotspots. Years of banditry, armed attacks, mass abductions, and climate shocks have displaced hundreds of thousands of families, destroyed farmlands, and driven food prices beyond the reach of millions.
UNICEF estimates that 5.4 million children across Nigeria’s North-East and North-West will suffer from acute malnutrition in 2025, with 1.8 million of them facing the severe form that can kill within weeks if left untreated. In some local government areas of Katsina, Zamfara, and Sokoto, severe acute malnutrition rates now exceed 15% — triple the World Health Organization’s emergency threshold.
The $5 million donation comes at a critical moment. Earlier this year, global funding cuts had forced UNICEF to ration therapeutic food supplies, leaving thousands of children on waiting lists. Health workers in rural clinics reported heartbreaking scenes of mothers walking for days with emaciated babies, only to be turned away due to stockouts.
With this new injection, UNICEF plans to rapidly scale up community-based treatment programs. Trained health workers and volunteers will screen children door-to-door, provide outpatient therapeutic feeding, and refer the most critical cases to stabilization centres. One sachet of RUTF a day for six to eight weeks can bring a severely malnourished child back from the brink.
Nigerian health authorities and humanitarian partners welcomed the announcement. The Minister of Health, Dr. Tunji Alausa, described the donation as “a powerful lifeline at a time when our children need it most.” UNICEF’s Representative in Nigeria thanked the American people and reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to reaching every child, no matter how remote the village.
For mothers like Aisha Musa in Zurmi, Zamfara State, the news brings hope. Last year, her 18-month-old son was treated with UNICEF-supplied therapeutic food after his weight plummeted to just six kilograms. “He was only skin and bones,” she recalled. “Today he is running and playing again. “If this help had not come, I don’t know if he would still be alive.”
While the $5 million will save tens of thousands of young lives, aid workers stress it is only a fraction of what is needed. UNICEF’s full appeal for nutrition, health, water, and education programs in Nigeria this year stands at $255 million and remains severely underfunded.
Nevertheless, the U.S. contribution sends a clear message: even amid global budget pressures, the lives of Nigeria’s most vulnerable children remain a priority. As one senior U.S. diplomat put it, “America will always stand with mothers and children fighting silent emergencies like hunger.”
