About 120 Non-Governmental Organisations, NGOs have cautioned world leaders to go beyond “grand gestures” to feed the 45 million people around the world who are on the brink of famine.

The coalition of 120 organisations joined forces in an open letter advising world leaders to do more to stop a global hunger crisis as new analysis shows 17 per cent of the global population is likely to need humanitarian aid by 2022.

This is coming following a Global Humanitarian Overview 2022, released by the United Nations, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, which cautioned that 274 million people could be in need of humanitarian assistance next year. This is up from 235 million people in 2021 and 168 million in 2020.

The United Nations said the number is a significant increase from 235 million people a year ago, which was already the highest figure in decades.

It was gathered that Nigeria ranks ninth on the index according to the number of people in need with 1.1 billion dollars required for the 8.3 million people critically in need of humanitarian assistance in 2022. The top three on the list is Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen, followed by Ethiopia, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Somalia. Myanmar completes the top 10 indexes coming after Nigeria.