The Kaduna State Committee on Food and Nutrition (SCFN) has tasked the Nutrition Focal Persons (NFPs) in the state to sustain its recent gains made in the fight against malnutrition.
The SCFN Chairman, Mr Bashir Muhammad, made the remark at the opening of a three-day quarterly coordination meeting for NFPs held in Zaria on Thursday
The meeting was organised by Kaduna State Planning and Budget Commission (PBC) with support of UNICEF.
It was aimed at reviewing the 2024 nutrition Annual Operation Plan (AOP) and developing the 2025 AOP for the Local Government Committee on Food and Nutrition.
Muhammad attributed the state’s recent award for achieving results in addressing malnutrition to the doggedness of the NFPs in the 23 Local Government Areas of the state.
According to him, they are closer to the grassroots and are development partners that are supportive of the cause of fighting malnutrition in the state.
He said that the feat would not have been possible without the contributions of the NFP, adding, ‘’nutrition is crucial to human capital development.’’
Muhammad, who doubles as the Permanent Secretary of the PBC, said that the state Gov. Uba Sani had been keen on reducing malnutrition in the state.
The chairman explained that part of the coordination role of the PBC ‘’is to ensure that all the nutrition indices in the state are reduced.’’
He added that the committee had braced up the role and was equally achieving its goal as stunting, wasting and other indices of malnutrition have been reduced in the state.
Earlier, Hajiya Aisha Mohammed, Director, Development Aid Coordination of the PBC, said the objective of the meeting was to document current nutrition activities in LGAs.
She said that other objectives included to document the barriers and opportunities for optimal nutrition practices and to improve the capacity of NFPs on how to implement nutrition activities in LGAs.
Others were to review 2024 LGAs nutrition AOP, to develop 2025 LGA nutrition AOP, to cost LGA nutrition AOP and to strategise on the implementation and harmonise 2025 LGA nutrition AOP.
She urged the NFPs to continue to show commitment and dedication to their work in maintaining the giant strides achieved in the fight against malnutrition.
In her remarks, Chinwe Ezeife, the Nutrition Specialist, UNICEF, Kaduna Field Office, said her organisation was supporting the engagement in collaboration with the PBC and other development partners due to the importance attached to nutrition.
According to her, it is a dual objective activity in the sense that we want to review what we have done in the last 11 months, like the end of the year review.
“We are also taking the opportunity to develop our AOP that will be derived from the multi-strategic plan of action on nutrition for Kaduna State.
“This is a very important tool because it will stir up the priority activities we need to achieve our indicators towards improving the health of Kaduna citizens, especially the vulnerable groups.
“It is Why UNICEF prioritised this three-day activity with the SCFN, of which we had the Permanent Secretary and all the 23 LGA NFPs and other stakeholders,”she said.
One of the facilitators, Dr Zainab Muhammad-Idris, the State Coordinator, Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) project, said that the meeting was to narrow down interventions to help achieve desired result.
The News agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that stakeholders who attended the meeting included the state Ministry of Local Government Affairs, State Primary Health Care Board and Kaduna State Emergency Nutrition Action Plan (KADENAP).
Others are Civil Society Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN), Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), among others.(NAN)
