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The African Development Bank has approved a $1 million emergency assistance grant to support the fight against malnutrition in Borno State, according to a statement released on Tuesday.

The Abidjan-based multilateral lender said its financing decision was taken after Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health declared a nutrition emergency in Borno in June this year. The AfDB said its funding will strengthen the government’s efforts in combatting malnutrition as well as other efforts by relief organizations such as UNICEF, World Food Programme, and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“The nutrition sector in Nigeria estimates a burden of 296,601 cases of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) in Borno State in 2017,” said Akinwumi Adesina, the President of the AfDB. “If these children are left untreated, it is envisaged that an estimated 59,320 would die. This intervention will augment efforts at attaining the target to reach 80% of the estimated SAM cases in the region by 2017.”

The AfDB said its grant will focus on reducing childhood mortality due to SAM by 46 per cent and infant mortality by 20 per cent. This will be done by treating 11,468 children in Borno State with Ready to Use Therapeutic Food; providing 60,000 children aged 6-23 months with multiple micronutrient powder; and strengthening sector coordination and monitoring at state level to provide effective coordination of nutrition response.

As a result of the Boko Haram crisis in Nigeria’s north-eastern region, over 7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance while about 2.2 million people are internally displace. There are about 4.4 million food-insecure people in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States, with 3.2 million of them in Borno State alone, according to the AfDB.