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Current Requirements (US$)$516.4 million
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Current People Hyper Prioritized2.5 million
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Current Hyper Prioritized Requirements$516.4 million
GHO estimates at launch (8 December 2025)
Crisis overview
Nigeria continues to face staggering levels of humanitarian needs driven by protracted conflict, insecurity, climate-induced disasters, and epidemic.
In the northeast states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe (BAY), sixteen years of armed conflict have taken an increasingly deadly turn for civilians - marked by a shift from military confrontations to predatory attacks on communities. Civilian casualties have intensified dramatically in the BAY States, with 4,000 people killed in the first eight months of 2025, equalling the number of civilians killed in the whole of 2023. This targeting of communities has destroyed livelihoods, displaced hundreds of thousands, and cut off access to farmland and markets. The use of improvised explosive devices has reached the same levels as in 2017, the height of the conflict.
Climate-related shocks are accelerating needs. Severe flooding in 2024 affected more than 5 million people across the country. It displaced around 1 million people and destroyed 1.3 million hectares of crops during the critical harvest period. The harvest loss could have fed 13 million people. This comes after years of conflict-disrupted agriculture. The combined impact, alongside persistent high inflation of 20 percent, has created conditions where food prices remain challenging for most families, as their income and purchasing power have collapsed.
Borno, Nigeria
Doctor Muhammad and a health worker attend to children diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition and anaemia at the stabilization centre in Mashamari, managed by the International Rescue Committee in Maiduguri.
OCHA/Chima OnweThe impact on children and women is devastating. An estimated 4.8 million people require emergency food and nutrition assistance in the BAY states – nearly one in five people. This includes 2 million children suffering from wasting (acute malnutrition). One third of these children are severely wasted and at immediate risk of death without specialized treatment. One in four women in these states experience acute malnutrition, while the region records the nation's highest maternal mortality rates. Each day, at least 75 severely wasted children face death from preventable malnutrition-related causes.
The 2026 figure of people in need of humanitarian assistance stands at 5.9 million, down from 7.8 million in 2025. This reflects a shock-driven scope of analysis and methodological refinement that includes all people in intersectoral severity phase 3 and above within the scope of analysis, enabling a sharper focus on those facing the most severe humanitarian conditions. The more rigorous prioritization means that the estimated 1.4 million people living in LGAs identified as intersectoral severity 1 (minimal) and 2 (stressed) are therefore accounted for outside the current PiN figure.
Needs remain critically high across all sectors. Severity analysis indicates that 42 per cent of locations in Borno State are identified at intersectoral severity level 4, requiring immediate life-saving interventions. Yobe and Adamawa predominantly fall within intersectoral severity level 3, reflecting severe conditions that demand sustained multisectoral assistance. These findings underscore the imperative for intensified humanitarian response in Borno alongside continued essential development programming across the BAY States.
Response priorities and financial requirements for 2026
Nigeria is one of eight transition countries in the Humanitarian Reset. Given the persistent high level of humanitarian needs, this means a transition from an internationally supported humanitarian operation to one that is locally led, implemented and funded by 2028. A key focus is, therefore, the localization of leadership, coordination, and delivery of humanitarian assistance. Considering the sharp reduction in resources, prioritization and targeting will be further tightened. Efficiency gains will be sought as outlined in the 2025 HNRP. Moreover, alternative sources of funding will be pursued. This said, it is envisaged that the primary source of funding will be federal and state government. The singular focus will be on life-saving activities, which necessitates closer collaboration with Government and development partners to address underlying causes of vulnerability and increase peoples’ resilience.
The response will target 2.5 million people across the BAY States with lifesaving and protection assistance, focusing on those most exposed to conflict, displacement, and recurrent shocks. This reduction from last year’s target reflects prioritization based on severity analysis and operational realities, coupled with the focus on lifesaving activities. This deliberate boundary-setting concentrates resources on populations with compound severity levels 4 and above, as well as on areas where malnutrition and food insecurity severity is level 4 or higher.
What we will deliver: Humanitarian partners, working increasingly through local organizations and in coordination with government counterparts, will provide emergency multisectoral assistance across eight priority sectors. Nutrition assistance will target 1.3 million people in need of treatment for acute malnutrition, particularly severely wasted children facing imminent death. Food security programming will target 1.4 million people through emergency food distributions and livelihood support. Health services will target 1.6 million people with essential primary healthcare, trauma care, and epidemic response. Water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions will target 1.4 million people to prevent waterborne disease outbreaks. Protection services, including gender-based violence response and child protection, will target 1.7 million conflict-affected individuals, with particular attention to women, children, and survivors of violence.
The financial requirement totals $516 million, representing significantly improved cost efficiency at approximately $206 per person reached, down from $253 in 2025. This enhanced efficiency stems from three strategic shifts: increased implementation through local partners with lower operational costs, streamlined coordination structures as the government assumes leadership functions, and activity-based costing focused exclusively on life-saving interventions.
Borno, Nigeria
Modu stops in front of an abandoned outpatient therapeutic programme site in Dikwa, where hundreds of children with moderate acute malnutrition were once treated by Mercy Corps. Due to limited funding, several treatment sites for malnourished children have closed across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states.
UNOCHA/Chima OnweTransition integration: The operational framework embeds government and local capacity strengthening at all levels, with international humanitarian actors progressively shifting from direct implementation to technical support and mentorship. An early warning, early action system will be operationalized to enable shock-responsive programming for predictable crises, including seasonal flooding and lean season food insecurity. Dynamic quarterly reviews of people in need and targets will ensure resources adjust to evolving conditions within the approved financial envelope.
Boundary-setting consequences: The HNRP prioritizes areas identified at intersectoral severity level 3 and above. Populations in severity levels 1 and 2, as well as those in non-prioritized locations, will not receive direct humanitarian assistance under this plan. These populations, while facing hardship, have better access to basic services and coping mechanisms. They are expected to be supported through Government humanitarian and development assistance, including social protection systems. The UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework will complement government efforts by addressing longer-term vulnerabilities that fall outside the humanitarian emergency scope. However, rapid deterioration in these areas may require a humanitarian response through the flexible and time-bound emergency allocation mechanism.
Key operational challenges include persistent access constraints (insecurity, bureaucratic impediments, explosive ordnance, and inclement weather) in conflict-affected areas, where non-state armed groups restrict humanitarian movement and pose a direct threat to humanitarian workers and assets. This is affecting approximately 15 percent of priority locations. Partner capacity limitations, particularly among local organizations - assuming greater implementation roles as outlined in the strategy, necessitate concurrent capacity development investments. There are also challenges in terms of bureaucratic impediments for some critical inputs for operations. Funding uncertainty threatens both response continuity and an orderly transition, potentially forcing an abrupt withdrawal rather than a planned handover to government systems.
Nigeria
2025 in review: response highlights and consequences of inaction
Response highlights
People reached
1.63 million people reached (45% of 3.6M intersectoral target), with girls (31%) and women (24%) prioritized.
Food Security
1.43 million people reached with food security assistance (51% of target), including emergency distributions and agricultural support.
Nutrition
1.32 million accessed nutrition services, including 167,576 severely wasted children receiving life-saving therapeutic feeding.
Health
930,000 people received emergency health services, including cholera outbreak response in flood-affected areas.
WASH
899,000 people accessed improved WASH facilities with gender-segregated designs, reducing protection risks.
Education
362,660 conflict-affected children received education in emergencies in safe learning environments.
Cash Assistance
400,000 people benefited from the anticipatory action assistance, including 140,000 people receiving direct cash assistance and more than 4,000 people were relocated before the floods.
Nigeria
A food distribution officer uses an electronic card reader and a smart card (SCOPE card) to verify the biometrics of a beneficiary receiving food assistance. The World Food Programme (WFP) employs these devices to capture and verify beneficiary data for food assistance and cash-based transfers.
OCHA/Chima OnweConsequences of funding cuts
Health and Nutrition
2 million targeted people not reached; 946,000 malnourished children and 2.2 million people could not access nutrition and health services
Protection and Shelter
1.4 million conflict-affected individuals lacked protection services (only 28% of 1.9M target reached); 631,000 families did not receive emergency shelter
Borno, Nigeria
Zara and three of her children rely on food assistance from the Government and humanitarian partners in the International Secondary School (ISS) IDP camp in Ngala. However, recent funding cuts have reduced this support. “We are grateful for the help we’ve received,” says Zara, “but it is not enough. We also cannot go out to the farms for fear of attacks by non-state armed groups. Even those who dare to farm often lose their crops to elephants.”
UNOCHA/Princewill James ChukwuebukaAccess Constraints
Access constraints and challenges
Hard-to-reach populations experienced significant service gaps due to non-state armed group restrictions, limiting coverage and increasing operational costs.
Coordination and partnerships
Humanitarian partners are working with the Government at both the state and federal levels to overcome bureaucratic impediments.
Acting before the floods: How Nigeria is pioneering anticipatory action at scale
When hydrology forecasts showed the Benue River would breach critical thresholds in September 2025, Fatima Ibrahim, a widow and small trader in Yola South, received the equivalent of $139 within 72 hours, enabling her to relocate her three children and save her market inventory before floodwaters arrived. "In 2024, we lost everything," she recalls. "This year, my children are safe, and I still have my business."
Fatima is among 400,000 people across seven high-risk areas in Adamawa who benefited from anticipatory action. Facilitated by OCHA in close collaboration with the Government of Nigeria, UN, and NGO partners, $7 million ($5 million from CERF and $2 million from the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund) was released when pre-agreed triggers were met. Through local and international organizations, the United Nations, and community structures, partners delivered cash, the modality communities preferred. Protection, health, WASH, shelter, and agricultural services were pre-positioned, and 288,000 livestock were vaccinated.
In part influenced and informed by the UN and partners’ AA framework, the Federal Government established a national anticipatory action framework under the Office of the Vice President and approved $113 million for anticipatory action against floods across all 36 states and the FCT, with humanitarian actors providing technical support... "We're no longer waiting for disasters," stated the Adamawa State Emergency Management Director. "We're protecting our people with our resources and leadership. The challenge now is building this capacity in every flood-prone state before 2026's rainy season."