At least 1.2 million people in Northeast Nigeria have been pushed deeper into hunger as international funding shortfalls force the World Food Programme to slash life-saving assistance, the UN agency has warned.

The alarm is based on new findings from the Cadre Harmonisé, West Africa’s regional food security analysis framework, which is aligned with the global Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system. That system ranks food insecurity from minimal to catastrophic, guiding governments and aid agencies in planning emergency responses.

According to the World Food Programme, last year’s funding gaps compelled it to scale back critical nutrition programmes across Nigeria, with devastating consequences for children and vulnerable households already living on the edge.

“In Nigeria, funding shortfalls last year forced WFP to scale down nutrition programmes, affecting more than 300,000 children. Malnutrition levels in several northern states have deteriorated from ‘serious’ to ‘critical,’” the agency said, warning that the situation is rapidly worsening as needs grow and resources shrink.

The cuts are particularly stark in Northeast Nigeria, where conflict, displacement, and economic shocks have eroded livelihoods for more than a decade. WFP now expects to reach only 72,000 people in February, a dramatic fall from the 1.3 million people it assisted during the last lean season, when food stocks were at their lowest and prices at their highest.

The lean season, typically running from June to August in the Sahel and much of West and Central Africa, is the period between harvests when families’ food reserves are exhausted and dependence on markets and aid peaks. For communities already battered by violence and climate extremes, this window has become a time of acute risk.

Across West and Central Africa, the picture is equally grim. WFP projects that 55 million people in the region will face crisis-level hunger or worse during the upcoming lean season. That means millions will struggle to meet basic food needs, resorting to negative coping strategies such as skipping meals, selling productive assets, or pulling children out of school.