EU Gives UN €1.2m for COVID-19 in Nigeria

By Adedapo Adesanya

The United Nations (UN) has announced receiving a funding support of €1.2 million from the European Union (EU) to help speed up response activities to COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.

This is coming about a week after the EU gave the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari the sum of €50 million for the same purpose.

According to the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), the humanitarian funding received will enhance the UN’s COVID-19 response in Africa’s most populous nation by engaging with communities on how to best protect themselves from the virus as well as providing essential health supplies where they are needed most.

In a statement signed by UNICEF’s spokesperson, Mr Geoffery Njoku, the fund’s representative in Nigeria, Mr Peter Hawkins said, – “With these critical funds from the EU, the UN as a whole in Nigeria is in a better position to do the important work of engaging with communities on how they can prevent the spread of this virus and also complement the government’s efforts to ensure that healthcare workers can continue the critical work they are already doing to test and treat cases in the country.”

Also quoting Mr Thomas Conan in the statement, the head of the EU’s humanitarian aid office in Nigeria noted that the EU will continue to maintain its humanitarian support to the most vulnerable people in Nigeria.

“In these trying times, the European Union is maintaining its humanitarian support to the most vulnerable people in Nigeria, where we have funded close to €271.5 million (N116 billion) in emergency food aid, shelter, access to clean water, hygiene and sanitation, and basic primary healthcare since 2014,” he said.

With EU funding, UNICEF will be contributing to the ongoing efforts in the country to contain the spread of the virus and mitigate its effects.

“It will help with the emergency response to identified cases, as well as prevention and preparedness measures for possible future outbreaks in crowded cities and camps for internally displaced people in the north-eastern part of the country,” he noted.

COVID-19 cases reached 782 on Tuesday in Nigeria after 117 cases, the highest daily tally so far was announced.