Unity Bank Plc and Lagos Food Bank have donated food products worth millions of Naira to Ogundimu Ilaje, a riverside community in a suburb of Lagos.
A total of 150 cartons of food with the label “Unity Box of Hope” were given out to hundreds of homes in the underprivileged neighborhood.
The act is a cooperative initiative to support and promote community-based programs that address hunger and malnutrition.
It also falls under the strategic Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSRs) of Unity Bank, which are intended to maintain the advancement of the social and physical well-being of the communities in which it operates.
In a statement, the lender added that it backed the initiative because it shared the objectives of the Lagos Food Bank Initiative, a nonprofit devoted to providing assistance to the poor.
The donation comes as the economy in the nation continues to deteriorate, particularly in light of the skyrocketing food inflation—which, as of August 2022, was at 23.12%—which has helped many households from going hungry.
Speaking to the recipients at the site of the food distribution, Unity Bank’s Head of Corporate Resources, Mr. Hillary Oguebo, said the bank, as an agric-focused financial institution, was carrying out its core mission in line with its drive for food security. He also said the bank was pleased to donate the food items to the community to help lessen the impact of the rising cost of food on them.
“Unity Bank has a financing business model that is principally anchored, amongst others, on boosting agricultural production, and it is also useful for those who have not benefitted from the bank’s Agric financing package to receive direct food intervention as it is being done today. Due to a lot of factors, especially growing insecurity, food production has been impacted severely, leading to historical food inflation. That has left many households struggling and battling hunger. So, this is a thoughtful gesture that we hope to sustain to reach as many Nigerians who deserve this form of intervention at this critical period,” he stated.
The Global Hunger Index rates Nigeria as having a serious level of hunger with a score of 28.3, placing it at position 103 out of 116. This is a result of the country’s increasing food insecurity, which has increased from less than 20% to more than 80% since roughly three decades ago.
Through the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, Unity Bank has a history of supporting smallholder farmers who increase food production. It has led some of the most significant and critical interventions in the agribusiness sector in Nigeria in recent years, and it has made significant investments in the sector over the past six years (CBN).
The Bank is reinventing CSR with a CSR project that provides food for homes in neglected areas.
The Financial institution is revolutionizing CSR by targeted interventions that are in perfect alignment with its business strategy through a CSR initiative that provides food to households in underprivileged neighborhoods.
