By Chinasaokwu Helen Okoro
Nigerian lawmakers have approved an additional $200 million for the health sector as part of its 2025 spending plan to offset the shortfall from U.S. aid cuts.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with more than 200 million people, was among the top ten recipients of aid from the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2023. USAID’s funding has been frozen for 90 days by the Trump administration.
The Nigerian senate appropriations chair Sen. Adeola Olamilekan said during the parliament’s budget session on Thursday that the country could suffer “adverse effects” from the U.S. foreign aid cuts, especially affecting disease control efforts.
The $200 million spending plan, part of the $36.6 billion federal budget, will “fill the gap created by the U.S. Government’s suspension of intervention to the health sector,” according to the bill approved on Thursday. Much of the money is intended to supply vaccines and treatment for epidemic diseases.
The U.S. invested over $600 million in health assistance in Nigeria in 2023 alone, according to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, mostly to support efforts to prevent malaria, end HIV and deliver vaccines.
The funding freeze from the U.S. could also affect the country on other fronts, including humanitarian assistance in the northeast where Islamic extremists have waged an insurgency against the government since 2009, resulting in a deadly war that has spilt over to Nigeria’s northern neighbours Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
USAID, for instance, partnered with the U.N. migration agency in Nigeria in its Rapid Response Fund project that addresses emergencies such as shelter, sanitation and protection in the conflict-hit region.
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