‘Nigeria humanitarian funding rises $17.9m in two months’

Funding for Nigeria’s humanitarian crisis rose by $17.9m in about two months, the latest data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has shown.

The increased funding pushed the country’s coverage rate above the Democratic Republic of the Congo to become the highest-funded of the eight crisis-affected countries tracked by the UN in West and Central Africa.

According to OCHA’s Regional Funding Status report for the period ending August 10, 2026, obtained by Saturday PUNCH, the country had received a total of $265.2m in humanitarian funding as of that date.

The funding comprised $257.9m channelled through Nigeria’s Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan and $7.3m from outside.

This represents an increase from the $247.3m Nigeria had received as of June 22, 2026, as previously reported by Saturday PUNCH, citing an earlier edition of the same OCHA report.

The development indicates a rise of $17.9m, or about 7.2 per cent, over the roughly two-month period.

HNRP funding rose from $232.8m to $257.9m, an increase of $25.1m, or 10.8 per cent, while funding outside the HNRP rose from $5.8m to $7.3m.

The new figures pushed Nigeria’s HNRP coverage rate to 50 per cent of its $516.4m 2026 requirement, up three percentage points from the 47 per cent recorded in the June report, leaving an unmet HNRP gap of $258.5m, according to the data.

While Nigeria trailed the DRC’s 53 per cent coverage rate as of the June report, the latest data showed the DRC’s coverage had slipped to 47 per cent, with $1.01bn raised against a requirement of $2.13bn, placing Nigeria ahead as the best-funded of the eight countries whose response plans OCHA tracks in the region.

The Central African Republic followed with 42 per cent coverage of its $264.1m requirement, Chad with 35 per cent of $986.1m, Burkina Faso with 28 per cent of $658.5m, Cameroon with 26 per cent of $319m, Mali with 20 per cent of $577.9m, and Niger with 16 per cent of $675.6m, the lowest in the region.

A closer look at the report revealed that, week-on-week, Nigeria’s funding grew by $1.1m between August 3 and August 10, 2026, showing that most of the increase recorded since June had come in earlier weeks of the reporting period.

Regionally, the report showed that West and Central Africa’s eight tracked response plans had together received $2.55bn against a combined requirement of $6.13bn, a coverage rate of 36 per cent, leaving $3.92bn unmet.

Between August 3 and August 9, new funding of $91.6m flowed into the region, as a report showed a 4 per cent rise in total funding from the previous week.

According to the report, among individual donors, the humanitarian arm of the European Commission, ECHO, had contributed $420m to the region by August 10, up from the $321.3m recorded in June, an increase of $98.7m.

Contributions from Germany rose to $130.4m from $116.9m over the same period, an increase of $13.5m, while Spain’s contributions to the region jumped by $67.2m, or 620 per cent, within the single week covered by the latest report.

The report identified the World Food Programme and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees as the largest channels for regional humanitarian funds, alongside UNICEF, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Action Against Hunger.

OCHA’s Regional Funding Status reports are published weekly and sourced from the UN’s Financial Tracking Service, tracking response plans for Nigeria, the DRC, Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Cameroon, and the Central African Republic, alongside overall funding flows to 23 countries across the wider region.