Highlights
• The food inflation index increased slightly to 24.45 percent in March 2023 from 24.35 percent in February 2023 due to an increase in the prices of some food items¹. The Naira depreciated at the parallel market as it closed at N750/$1 on Friday, 31st of March 2023 compared to N587 recorded in the same period the previous year.
• The cost of the 70 percent Survival Minimum Expenditure Basket (SMEB) for a family of five in Maiduguri and Jere in Borno State was 28,613 naira in March 2023 — a slight decrease of 1 percent compared to 28,812 naira in February 2023. However, in Damaturu the SMEB slightly increased by 1 percent from 27,984 naira in February 2023 to 28,712 naira in March 2023. Please refer to Table 3 for the SMEB values in other LGAs of the BAY states.
• The cost of SMEB in MMC/Jere and Damaturu has decreased by 10 percent and 11 percent compared to three months ago, which can be at-tributed to the decline in retail food prices due to decreased demand following the cash swap policy.