By Ere-ebi Agedah
In an effort to tackle alarming rate of nutrition in Nigeria, the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, the Advancing Nutrition Project has collaborated with the federal government on a 3-day stakeholders conference which seeks to develop a strategic road map to advance Nigeria’s nutrition data value chain.
It is also expected to provide a framework which will stand as basics to align and coordinate around the national data quality, utilization, financing, budget tagging and tracking.
This comes as UNICEF says Nigeria is heading in the right direction as more women are exclusively breastfeeding their children up till six months of age, revealing that the new data from last year’s survey shows that there is more support for women to attend antenatal services.
Speaking at the flag off of the conference tagged, ‘‘Call to Action’’ in Abuja, the Maternal Infant and Young Child Nutrition, MIYCN Advisor for USAID Advancing Nutrition Project, Pauline Adah, said as an organization with the mandate to increase Nutrition data, the conference will afford increased data evidence to present the growth of children and also seek to find solutions of better ways to improve the nutrition data as it pertains to SDGs.
Adah explained that at the moment Nigeria has a gap program that seeks to reduce malnutrition in different forms of wasting and stunting.
As a development partner, Adah added that USAID Advancing Nutrition Project has an immense contribution to the Nutrition space in Nigeria like the Integrated Health Programme, Breakthrough Action Nigeria programme and recently the USAID Advancing Nutrition Project in Nigeria.
‘‘Our several projects come together to fit into the different aspects of Nutrition to advance the results of nutrition in Nigeria. We are a very huge contributors to all the surveys that are been shared in the conference, we have the micro nutrient survey result, the food consumption survey results, that will all be shared in the conference.
‘‘We are also very interested in this conference because it will help give a new face to nutrition actions in Nigeria, it is only through data that you can know what the state of Nutrition is and know what area to put in more effort. We are looking forward to all the data that will be shared in this conference and it will help us shape our upcoming proposals for new projects.
She however explained that one of their mandates at USAID Advancing Nutrition Project is to strengthen the capacity of all their state partners.
‘‘We are presently working with Bauchi, kebbi and Sokoto and we will be including Ebonyi state and the FCT, we ensure that we disseminate these materials to the states and the LGAs, we work very closely with the state committee on food and nutrition in each of the state, we ensure that these documents are passed on. We are also working on forming the local government committee for food and nutrition thereby making sure that these documents get to the grassroots they get to see the results that speak to the nutrition status of their environment, this will equally encourage them to do more where they see a lot of gaps’’ she explained.
Also, speaking on the sidelines of the conference, the Chief of Nutrition, UNICEF, Nemat Hajeeebhoy said Nigeria is ranked number one in Africa with the number of malnourished children, attributing it to lack of progress as to what the children eat after six months of age, insisting that it is critically important if the country intends to reverse the trend of malnutrition.
‘‘My appeal to everyone using this data is that we ensure that our health system, our food system, our social protection system, our work with women, mothers’ weather you are in the private or government is done to support all mothers to be with their children and ensure that they get the right nutrition and the right start to life’’ she said.
While declaring the conference open, the Minister of State for Health, Prince Clement Agba noted that the Federal government is an active participant in policies that addresses malnutrition as it has made investment in Nutrition a priority insisting that failure to implement this can attract a negative effect on the Nation’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP.
According to the minister, the FGs response in the fight against malnutrition has been productive and people oriented which includes a physical stimulus package, amendment to the medium physical framework and the establishment of nutrition department.
The minister insisted that the FG has emphasized on protecting the economy and funding critical sectors of the economy adding that significant progress has been made like the launch of the multi economic sustainability package.
‘‘As part of our resolve to move the nutrition agenda forward we have priorities the implementation of the National multi sectoral plan flagship for food and Nutrition in the national development plan of 2021-2025 this is in addition to the concentric diversification of our economy with agriculture through continuum of the value chain that has now contributed significantly to our economy.
‘‘In line with the United Nations directives, Nigeria successfully organized series of food systems at both National and subnational levels of government.
‘‘We have placed investment in nutrition a priority through amendment to the physical stimulus package and during this conference we will unveil numerous projects carried out in the nutrition data space.
“Nutrition is not just a health issue it is about the protection of the next generation, let us ensure that every child has the opportunity to survive and thrive’’ he said.
