Kaduna government targets increased funding to address malnutrition
The Kaduna state government said, it is committed to funding and ensuring viable policies for addressing malnutrition.
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Mr Bashir Muhammad, the Chairman of Kaduna State Committee on Food and Nutrition (SCFN), stated at the closing of a two-day UNICEF-supported Review and Development of 2024 Annual Operational Plan (AOP) for food and nutrition with 23 LGAs Nutrition Focal Person (NFPs) on Friday in Zaria, Kaduna State.
He said stakeholders and MDAs in food and nutrition in the state were brought together to contribute their quota in reducing the scourge.
He added that the state government stood firm on funding areas of food and nutrition in all its LGAs.
“I don’t think funding is a challenge for the state, rather the issues of insecurity in some of the LGAs, chairmen of LGAs do contribute certain amount of money monthly for food and nutrition,” he said.
The SCFN chairman stated that other challenges were being tackled strategically and gradually.
“It is better that authorities, especially in the LGAs, inter switch NFPs with other LGAs instead of transfer which at times, leave some vacuum that hamper the realisation of food and nutrition activities,” Muhammad said.
Also commenting on surmounting the challenges of policies on food and nutrition, he noted the existence of the Kaduna State Economic Planning Board, coordinated by the PBC and Ministry of Local Government.
He explained that at the board’s meetings, all LGA chairmen were mandated to discuss challenges dealing with food and nutrition in their various LGAs.
“We make sure we come up with solutions and ideas on how they can support NFPs to ensure their mandate in surmounting the challenges,” he said.
Muhammad thanked UNICEF, Alive and Thrive, Civil Society Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN), Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigerian (ANRiN) project, Harvest Plus and other development partners, for their support in implementating the required policies on nutrition.
Earlier, Hajiya Aisha Mohammed, the Director, Development Aid Coordination (PBC), said the workshop was to review the 2023 performance and develop 2024 AOP for the 23 LGAs.
She noted that the main aim was to document current nutrition activities across the 23 LGAs, and also document the barriers and opportunities for optimal nutrition practices.
Muhammed said the meeting was also aimed at improving the capacity of NFPs on programmes implementation of nutrition activities at the LGAs level.
Mrs. Victoria Adams of Alive & and Thrive, said without reviewing the past, challenges and the way forward could not be known.
She urged the NFPs to use the knowledge they gained, while disclosing that Alive and Thrive had scaled up its support to six other LGAs in Kaduna, to ensure more successes in reducing malnutrition in the state.
