Gombe: CS-SUNN advocates Establishment of Nutrition departments in MDAs

The Civil Society Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN), has called for the establishment of Nutrition Departments in all line Ministries, Department and Agencies in Gombe State.

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The call was made by the CS-SUNN Kaduna State Coordinator, Mrs Jessica Bathelomeo, during a media roundtable in Gombe, where she equally called for the scaling up of staple food fortification initiatives for the availability of affordable nutritious foods.

“The absence of dedicated nutrition departments in the state further deepens this challenge, resulting in a decentralization of leadership and responsibility for policies, planning, programming, advocacy, and monitoring related to nutrition across various sectors,” said Bathlomeo.

She said, the CS-SUNN wanted the extension of maternity leave for nursing mothers in Gombe State from the current four to six months, with their salaries running, stressing the critical need to ensure that every infant in Gombe State enjoyed healthier and more prosperous lives.

Bathelomeo said the measures play an important role in advancing exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months of infancy and sustaining breastfeeding alongside optimal complementary feeding until the age of two years.

She also called on the Gombe state Government to allocate and release adequate funds promptly for the implementation of nutrition interventions designed to reduce malnutrition in the state.

According to her, because of the challenges, CS-SUNN was implementing the ‘Increased Investment to Scale-Up Quality Nutrition Services’ project in Gombe State, in collaboration with UNICEF.

“This inaugural media roundtable hosted by the Gombe State Chapter of CS-SUNN highlights the critical need for increased investments, timely releases and effective utilization of allocated funds for nutrition programming in Gombe,” said Bathelomeo.

She said the increased investment to scale-up quality nutrition services project, had become necessary given the persistent challenge of malnutrition, particularly among women and children, despite Nigeria’s significant progress in various sectors.

Bathelomeo stressed the consequences of malnutrition on the health and development of individuals, communities, and the nation at large, saying stunting is linked to adverse outcomes such as poor brain and cognitive development, diminished educational attainment, and reduced productivity in adulthood.

Quoting Nigeria’s Demographic and Health Survey, NDHS 2018, she says the statistics show that 51.2% of children under five are stunted, while 30.4% of them are underweight, and 7.8% others wasted in Gombe state.

“These figures are not just numbers, they represent the lives of Nigerian children and underscore the urgency for concerted efforts to address malnutrition,” Bathelomeo said.

She said the Nigerian Government, in collaboration with key stakeholders, formulated the National Strategic Plan of Action for Nutrition to address the challenge of malnutrition.

According to her, the plan is comprehensive and outlines costed, nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions with measurable targets spanning from 2014 to 2019.

Bathelomeo said the statistics indicated that a lot still needed to be done to combat the scourge of malnutrition in Gombe State.

She, however, praised the state government’s commitment to addressing malnutrition through the domestication of the National Strategic Plan of Action for Nutrition in 2016 and later reviewed it in 2023, as well as the operationalization of the State Food and Nutrition Policy.

She called on the media to effectively heighten the reporting of nutrition issues to stimulate policy and decision makers to take action towards curbing malnutrition in Gombe while pledging the continued of CS-SUNN to equip the media with relevant information for thorough and factual reporting on nutrition.