Launch of the 2025 Lean Season Food Security and Nutrition Crisis Multisector Plan for Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe States
By the Honourable Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Development Partners, State Leaders, Community Champions, and Friends of Humanity,
Today, we are not simply launching a plan. We are issuing a call — a call to conscience, to collaboration, and to coordinated action in the face of an urgent, preventable crisis.
We gather here for Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe — states whose people have endured more than their fair share of hunger, loss, and uncertainty. In the upcoming lean season, projections show that millions are at risk of severe food insecurity, with many children facing the specter of malnutrition, some acutely. Behind every data point is a mother skipping meals so her children can eat, a farmer whose fields are dry and unsafe, and a child whose physical and cognitive development is already compromised by hunger.
This is not just a humanitarian issue — it is a moral one. It is a challenge to the promise of the Renewed Hope Agenda. And it is a test of our capacity to act not when it is convenient, but when it is necessary.
Today, we launch a Multisector Plan that brings together food assistance, nutrition, health, water and sanitation, protection, agriculture, and early recovery — because no single sector can fix hunger, and no single intervention can break the cycle of crisis.
This plan is homegrown but evidence-based. It is built on lessons from the past, but powered by innovation and foresight.
We are leveraging the National Social Register, geotagged to enable real-time vulnerability mapping. We are integrating digital targeting to reach displaced persons and host communities more efficiently and transparently. And we are anchoring the plan in local leadership because ownership at the state and LGA level is not optional — it is essential.
Let me be clear: the Federal Government will lead from the front — not just in coordinating this response but in ensuring alignment with national policy, clarity of roles, and accountability of outcomes. We will support state structures, empower frontline actors, and ensure every kobo is traceable and impactful.
But this plan is not just about structures and strategies. It is about a promise — that no child in Borno, Adamawa, or Yobe should have to sleep hungry when the world has enough food; that no mother should lose a child to a condition we know how to treat, and that dignity must never be a casualty of conflict or poverty.
To our international and local partners: we value your technical expertise, your field presence, and your commitment. This plan invites not just your continued support, but your alignment. Alignment with national systems, with state authorities, and with the people whose resilience we are here to reinforce — not replace.
Let us also be honest: this is not a one-off intervention. The lean season is seasonal, but our response must be strategic. This plan lays the foundation for a durable system that links emergency response with long-term recovery. It is not enough to feed — we must also restore livelihoods, rebuild health, and reclaim futures.
So today, I invite all of us to move beyond silos, to rise above mandates, and to act in unity — because the cost of inaction will be counted not just in numbers, but in names, faces, and futures lost.
I hereby declare the 2025 Lean Season Food Security and Nutrition Crisis Multisector Plan for Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe officially launched.
Let us now go forth and deliver on this promise — with speed, with integrity, and above all, with humanity.
Thank you, and may God bless the work of our hands.
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction,
Prof. Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda.
