Okonjo-Iweala: Nigeria well placed to lead Africa’s trade reform

The United Nations has warned that nearly 35 million people in Nigeria may face food insecurity in the upcoming lean season, underscoring the scale of the country’s humanitarian challenges.. weigh

The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Mohamed Malick Fall, disclosed this yesterday in Abuja at the launch of the 2026 Nigeria Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan.

“Families are facing increased food insecurity. Children are facing alarming malnutrition levels. Nearly a record 35 million people may face food insecurity in the upcoming lean season,” Fall said.

“Three million children are at risk of life-threatening severe acute malnutrition. These are not statistics. These numbers represent lives, futures and Nigerians.” He said civilians in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states continued to live in fear amid rising insecurity.

“In Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states alone, where we have seen an uptick in suicide bombings and the extensive use of improvised explosive devices, more than 4,000 civilians were killed in the first eight months of 2025, the same number as in all of 2023,” he said.

According to the United Nations, the 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan aims to reach 2.5 million people, down from 3.6 million in 2025, with lifesaving assistance costing about 516 million U.S. dollars. The reduction reflects a focus on the most critical interventions amid a sharp decline in projected 2026 resources.

“There are extreme humanitarian needs and protection risks across the country,” Fall added. The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Dr Bernard Doro, said humanitarian action must support long-term stability.

“Humanitarian action must serve as a bridge; supporting stabilisation, restoring dignity, and enabling households and communities to move permanently out of vulnerability and poverty,” he said.

Represented by the Minister of State in the ministry, Dr Yusuf Sununu, Doro said the 2026 plan should mark a shift from emergency response to prevention and recovery, with full government leadership and ownership of humanitarian coordination. He called for an integrated approach linking humanitarian action with development and peacebuilding efforts.

“Let this launch mark a clear transition from dependency to resilience, from response to prevention, and from humanitarian management to sustainable human development,” the minister said.

Shettima: Food security now central to Nigeria’s economic, security strategy
This came as Vice President Kashim Shettima said Nigeria has moved beyond treating food security as a narrow agricultural issue, repositioning it as a core macroeconomic, security and governance priority.

He said the Federal Government had begun a multi-dimensional agricultural strategy aimed at insulating the country from global supply shocks while restoring productivity across major food-producing regions. Shettima spoke at a high-level panel titled ‘When Food Becomes Security’ at the Congress Centre during the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“In Nigeria, we don’t look at food security purely as an agricultural issue. It is a macroeconomic, security and governance issue. Our focus is to use food security as a pillar for national security, regional cohesion and stability,” he said.

According to him, Nigeria’s food security framework rests on three pillars: boosting food production, ensuring environmental sustainability and strengthening regional integration within the West African sub-region. He said global disruptions and shifting supply-chain dynamics had forced Nigeria to look inward and rebuild its agricultural base through resilient food systems adapted to diverse ecological zones.

“Nigeria is a very large country, and there is a relationship between the economy and ecology. In the Sahelian North, we are dealing with desertification, deforestation and drought. In the riverine South and parts of the North Central, flooding is our major challenge,” he said.

Shettima said the government was promoting drought-resistant, flood-tolerant and early-maturing varieties of staple crops such as rice, sorghum and millet, while redesigning food systems in flood-prone southern regions to withstand climate-related shocks. On security, he acknowledged that many of Nigeria’s food-basket areas were affected by conflict, thereby constraining agricultural output.

“Most of the food baskets of our nation are security-challenged. That is why we are creating food security corridors and strengthening community-based security engagements so farmers can return safely to their land,” he said.

The Vice President said the Federal Government had launched the Back to the Farm Initiative to resettle displaced farmers by providing inputs, insurance, and access to capital.

Addressing macroeconomic pressures, Shettima identified import dependence and foreign exchange volatility as key drivers of food inflation.

“We largely import wheat, sugar and dairy products, and this has a direct impact on inflation. Our strategy is to accelerate local production and promote substitutes such as sorghum, millet and cassava flour to correct these structural imbalances,” he said. He said the approach aligned food security with inflation control, national stability and regional cooperation, positioning agriculture as a frontline response to economic and security threats.

Shettima added that Nigeria, long regarded as Africa’s giant, had “woken up from its slumber” under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, noting that the administration aimed to make “smallholders and fishers investable at scale” within the next 12 months.

He also urged African leaders to deepen cooperation under the African Continental Free Trade Area, saying intra-African trade had become more critical amid global uncertainty. He expressed optimism that the Renewed Hope Agenda reforms would move climate adaptation from pilot projects to full-scale implementation and lift intra-African trade beyond its current 10.7 per cent level.

Okonjo-Iweala says Nigeria well placed to lead Africa’s trade reform
In a related development, the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said that Nigeria is well positioned to lead Africa’s trade reform in an increasingly fragmented global economy.

Speaking yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, she dismissed claims that multilateralism had ended, saying there were still significant opportunities for Nigeria and Africa within the current global trading system.

“I know it looks gloomy, and we hear that trade has been destroyed and global trade rules no longer work. It is true that trade has been severely disrupted — the biggest disruption in 80 years — in the last year, but almost three-quarters of world trade is still going on on our terms. There’s disruption but the system is resilient,” she said.

Okonjo-Iweala said many countries were now seeking to diversify trade after realising the risks of over-dependence on single supply sources.
She said Nigeria, with a population of about 220 million and a growing middle class, had a strong chance of attracting relocating supply chains in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, textiles, and agro-processing.

“In that context, Nigeria, with a large market of 220 million with a sizable middle class, has a chance to attract some of these supply chains that are trying to diversify in pharmaceuticals, in textiles, agro-processing, so many areas where I think we can have a comparative advantage. So I think this is our time, but it will not fall into our laps. We have to work for it, and I think this is the direction,” she said.

The WTO chief urged African countries, particularly Nigeria, to prioritise value addition to strengthen trade within the continent and beyond. She noted that Africa’s trade remained dominated by raw materials, with about 60 per cent of exports to other regions still unprocessed, while intra-African trade accounted for only 15 to 20 per cent of total trade.

“We need to add value to our products, even for the intra-Africa market, because we are trading with each other. We have mostly commodities and raw materials that we’re trading. Sixty per cent of our exports elsewhere are still raw commodities. And I know it’s changing, and African leaders are recognising now that they have to change. So they’re making moves. But we need to accelerate that, add value. That way we can trade different products to each other,” she said.

Okonjo-Iweala highlighted opportunities for Nigeria to dominate segments of the African market, particularly textiles and apparel, citing the country’s strong fashion industry. She also identified digital pharmaceuticals and digitally delivered services as emerging sectors where African women and young people were already excelling.

“I’m very excited that Nigeria might be able to take over the African market in textiles and apparel, because we have powerful people in fashion. If we can scale it, especially as the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Doris Uzoka-Anite, says we’re already working on trying to scale up some of this. We need to scale to capture the African market, as we have a strong advantage there.

“Our women and our young people are doing amazing things, and I admire them. If we can capitalise on this, we can capture a big slice of the African market,” she said.