Kaduna govt partners UNICEF, NAFDAC, others on nutrition intervention

Kaduna State Government and its nutrition partners, yesterday, developed strategies to strengthen result-based nutrition intervention to address the scourge of malnutrition in the state.

Permanent Secretary, Planning and Budget Commission (PBC), Alhaji Bashir Muhammad, said, in Kaduna, at the nutrition partners’ coordination and review meeting, that the move was to accelerate results in addressing malnutrition in the state.

Muhammad, who is also the Chairperson of the State Committee on Food and Nutrition, expressed optimism toward achieving the goal of reducing malnutrition among maternal, adolescent, infant and young children in the state.

He commended the partners for supporting Kaduna to address the scourge of malnutrition among women, adolescents and children under five years.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the partners include: United Nations Children’s Fund, Save the Children International, Alive and Thrive (A&T), Accelerating Nutrition Result in Nigeria (ANRiN) and Civil Society-Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN).

Others are: National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), National Orientation Agency (NOA) and Kaduna Polytechnic.

He said that the review meeting provided a platform to assess progress and challenges, as well as re-strategise for effective and cost-effective interventions that would provide needed results.

Muhammad said: “We want to see stronger working synergy and collaboration among nutrition partners, as well as between partners and state government, to achieve better results.”

Muhammad thanked the partners for supporting nutrition activities to reduce the burden of malnutrition among women, adolescents, infants and young children in the state.

Director, Development Aid Coordination (PBC), Mrs. Linda Yakubu, said that the goal of the coordination meeting was to sustain efforts toward reducing malnutrition in the state.

“The meeting was also organised to receive reports on achievements and challenges faced in the second quarter, as well as planned activities for 2022.

“We also want to share experience and innovative ideas that would improve nutrition programming and identify emerging opportunities that will accelerate the scaling up of nutrition interventions in the state,” she said.

Also speaking, the Nutrition Specialist, UNICEF, Kaduna, Mrs. Chinwe Ezeife, said the fund was supporting the state in the delivery of preventive and curative nutrition intervention.

Ezeife said that the support was under early childhood nutrition, nutrition for school-age children, adolescents and women, as well as care for children with acute malnutrition.