Nigeria has confirmed that more than four million children in the Northeast and Northwest regions are malnourished.
Mrs Ladidi Bako-Aiyebusi, the Director of Nutrition Department in the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare , made this known on Wednesday at a five days meeting with nutrition experts and stakeholders in Keffi local government area of Nasarawa state.
The ministry is holding the meeting in partnership with Civil Society -Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN) and other nutrition partners on a strategic advocacy policy for nutrition in Nigeria.
The meeting which started on Tuesday, will end on Saturday.
Those participating in the meeting are nutrition experts, academia, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) among others.
In her opening remarks, Bako-Aiyebusi said the meeting was called to policy directions to guide integrated result focus advocacy on nutrition Issues in Nigeria.
She added that currently, Nigeria faces severe crisis of triple burden of malnutrition, evidence by widespread macro and micronutrient deficiency, undernutrition and overnutrition with significant impact on health and socio-economic development.
“In addition, the 2021 National Food Consumption and Micronutrient Survey report shows that nearly 4.4 million children in the Northeast and Northwest regions are malnourished.
“Identified causes of malnutrition include inadequate access to food, poor food consumption, improper feeding and caring practices, economic and political structures, low economic status, inadequate health-seeking behaviors and low level of education among the populace,” she said.
She pointed out that globally, advocacy has been identified as a productive tool in promoting the interest of persons or situations especially when it is evidence-based hence nutrition.
”Every other component of health, needs to be promoted through evidence-based advocacy.
“This is why the Nutrition Department of the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, in collaboration with relevant Stakeholders is hosting this 5-days meeting.
“It is for stakeholders to think through the process of developing a strategic document on effective ways to drive advocacy for nutrition in Nigeria putting Multiple Micronutrient Supplementation (MMS) into consideration and every other nutrition component along the life cycle, leaving no one behind.
“It is believed that the National Advocacy Strategic approach will enhance collaboration, integration, capacity strengthening as well as develop an investment case for addressing nutrition in the Health Sector,” she added.
In an interview, Mr Kunle Ishola, Programme Officer, CS-SUNN lauded the initiative of the ministry and said advocacy engagement cannot be effective except some steps are followed hence the reason for the technical and financial support of CS-SUNN for the stakeholders meeting.
He explained that the support of CS-SUNN is to enable participants to come up with an effective nutrition advocacy document that will change the narrative in Nigeria.
“If there is a way for it to go and it doesn’t go that way, don’t expect to see results.
“So having pushed issues of nutrition for years, we just felt that there is a need to channel a clear path for nutrition advocacy in the country.
“The essence of the meeting is to come up with elements that makes effective advocacy on nutrition issues,” he said.
Also speaking, Mr William Anyebe, a participant said a lot of nutrition advocacy is going on but there isn’t a document that guides the process hence the meeting to package a document that guides how nutrition advocacy is carried out in Nigeria henceforth.
“Considering that malnutrition is a very big issue in Nigeria, it is important to come up with a document that makes it very clear so that all persons involved in the advocacy for improved nutrition are properly guided,” he said.
Another participant, Prof. Salisu Abubakar, Vice Chairman, National Nutrition Technical Working Group also added that the document will guide nutrition advocates on how best to integrate advocacy and make it more collaborative for better funding and service delivery.
He said the strategy document will also capture new ways of tackling undernutrition in rural areas and overnutrition in urban areas.