From: Timothy Olanrewaju, Maiduguri

Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, will, on Thursday, speak on the humanitarian challenges in the Boko Haram-ravaged northeast states, at the World Humanitarian Summit in Oslo, Norway.

The event is co-hosted by the United Nations and Germany.

Shettima was invited to the summit with the Federal Government delegation led by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Godfrey Onyema.

A statement by the spokesman to the governor, Isa Gusau, said Shettima’s discussion at the summit will be focusing on humanitarian crisis arising from the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast and other communities within the Lake Chad Region.

“Tagged, ‘Oslo conference on Nigeria and the Lake Chad’, the conference is scheduled to hold on Thursday and Friday with donors from different countries expected to make financial commitments needed by humanitarian agencies to increase aid and rebuilding of livelihoods for victims of attacks in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. UN envoys, humanitarian workers from the USAID, European Union and other parts of the world and Foreign Ministers of the three host countries are expected to grace the event,” the statement said.

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The Governor is also bid to join a panel to discuss Response and Recovery towards Durable Solutions. “The Borno Governor is speaking alongside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr. Filippo Grandi; the UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria, Mr. Edward Kallon; Mr. Jan Egeland‎ of the Norwegian Refugee Council with Mr. Bill Swing‎ of the UN International Committee on Migration expected to moderate the panel.

“The panelists are expected to “focus on on the role of international partners in supporting returns, modalities of forging closer links between emergency response and long-term recovery, ensuring greater involvement of national and local authorities in assisting families restart their lives and that the particular needs of women and girls are addressed,” the spokesman explained.

UN Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for the northeast,  Peter Lundberg, indicated last week in Maiduguri that the world body in collaboration with humanitarian agencies was mobilising  international support for the northeast humanitarian crisis to the tune of $1 billion (about N350 billion).

The concept report to the summit indicated that about 10.7 million people out of 26 million live in areas affected by Boko Haram, need life-saving support.

‎”The Boko Haram insurgency and its spill over into neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger have caused the displacement of over 2.3 million people in the region, of whom 1.77 million are internally displaced in Nigeria, while some 201,600 Nigerian refugees have sought asylum in Cameroon, Chad and Niger. The refugee-hosting countries also have sizeable IDP populations (Cameroon: 198,889; Chad: 103,876; and Niger: 121,391),” the report said.