Millions of vulnerable Nigerians may soon depend more than ever on their own government as humanitarian leadership gradually shifts from the United Nations to Nigerian institutions.
Development Diaries reports that Nigeria’s humanitarian minister Bernard Doro says the country is assuming greater leadership of its humanitarian response as the United Nations transitions to a technical support role, starting in January 2027, raising concerns about how the handover will be funded, coordinated and monitored.
Millions of Nigerians still depend on humanitarian support for food, healthcare, shelter, education and protection services, with the UN reporting that nearly 35 million Nigerians are at risk of hunger in 2026 following the collapse of global aid budgets.
For years, humanitarian assistance in northeast Nigeria has relied heavily on international organisations working alongside government institutions to respond to conflict, displacement and other emergencies.
It is understood that the transition now underway is designed to place the Nigerian government at the centre of that response, while the United Nations and other partners continue to provide technical support.
‘The transition we are discussing is not about reducing or ending support; on the contrary, it is about transforming the way support is delivered and how domestic funds, both government and private sector, are mobilised’, Doro said at a two-day Humanitarian Transition Workshop in Abuja, jointly convened by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction and the United Nations.
‘It is about moving from a model where international actors currently play a central coordinating and funding role towards one where Nigerian institutions, systems, NGOs and communities are at the forefront of humanitarian action’, he added.
Based on the minister’s remarks, Nigeria will coordinate humanitarian preparedness, response and recovery with federal and state authorities, aid agencies and affected communities, while leading the development of the country’s 2027 humanitarian plan with technical support from the United Nations.
Those commitments deserve public confidence, but they also require public accountability. Citizens should know how responsibilities will be shared, how programmes will be funded and how progress will be measured.
A humanitarian transition is about ensuring that families who currently rely on health clinics, nutrition programmes, emergency education and protection services do not suddenly discover that the support keeping them alive disappeared during an administrative handover.
The Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, state emergency management agencies and other relevant ministries now face growing expectations to demonstrate that they have both the resources and the capacity to sustain services that humanitarian organisations have provided for years.
That responsibility extends beyond implementing programmes to explaining them, and citizens should not have to guess which agency is taking over a particular service, whether funding has been approved, or how long existing humanitarian programmes will continue.
A transition of this scale should be accompanied by publicly accessible implementation plans, timelines, budget allocations and measurable targets so citizens know who is responsible for what and can hold government accountable if services begin to fail.
That accountability reflects the responsibility the constitution already places on government to protect the welfare and security of citizens. As humanitarian organisations gradually reduce their direct role, public institutions must demonstrate that they are ready to carry that responsibility.
The people most likely to feel the consequences of a poorly managed transition are also those least able to cope with it. Families displaced by insurgency in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, communities recovering from repeated flooding, children relying on emergency learning centres, pregnant women dependent on humanitarian health services and households already struggling with food insecurity have little capacity to absorb interruptions in assistance.
For them, a poorly managed transition can determine whether children continue attending school, sick people receive treatment, and families have enough food to survive.
Nigerians should therefore request the federal government’s humanitarian transition framework, including the agencies assuming specific responsibilities, the budgets supporting those responsibilities, implementation timelines and the indicators that will be used to measure progress.
The humanitarian ministry should publish the full humanitarian transition framework, including the responsibilities of each institution, budget commitments, implementation timelines and measurable targets.
Regular public progress reports would also allow citizens to assess whether the transition is strengthening humanitarian services or simply changing who receives the credit and the criticism.
