The National Nutrition Financing Technical Committee, established with the backing of the World Bank’s Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) Project, has launched a major advocacy effort.
The aim is to prioritise nutrition interventions in Nigeria’s 2025 national budget.
Speaking at the meeting on Monday, in Abuja, Mr Tanimu Yakubu, the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, stressed the need for substantial funding to address Nigeria’s growing food and nutrition crisis.
Yakubu said that the food and nutrition crisis had been aggravated by ongoing socio-economic challenges.
The News Agency of Nigeria(NAN), reports that the committee includes stakeholders from various federal ministries, the Office of the Vice President, the Nigerian Governors Forum, and international partners like the World Bank.
It underscored the importance of expanding the nutrition budget in key Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).
Yakubu called for the integration of evidence-based nutrition interventions into the 2025 budgets of these MDAs and urged the adoption of a national nutrition budget tagging framework.
“This system will track resources dedicated to nutrition and ensure effective appropriation, releases, and implementation,” he said.
Dr Ritgak Tilley-Gyado, Task Team Leader of the ANRiN project, said that nutrition had been included in Nigeria’s budget circulars since 2021, due to ongoing public financial management reforms.
Tilley-Gyado said that the reforms were aimed at improving budget prioritisation and increasing domestic resources for nutrition.
she said that they were are part of broader efforts supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s SUSTAIN project across 12 Nigerian states.
“Over the past three years, Nigeria has seen a gradual increase in its federal budget allocation for nutrition from N10.8 billion in 2021 to N6.5 billion in 2023, and an expected N18.0 billion in 2024.
“This growth is attributed to the National Council on Nutrition, led by Vice-President Kashim Shettima,” she said.
Mrs Uju Anwukah, Special Assistant to the President on Public Health, emphasised the importance of building on these gains by fostering innovative partnerships with the private sector.
Anwukah also stressed the need for establishing legislative committees on food security and nutrition to facilitate stronger collaboration between the executive and legislative branches.
NAN recalls that as Nigeria continues to tackle food insecurity and malnutrition, the advocacy efforts of the Nutrition Finance Committee mark a significant step toward securing sustainable financing for nutrition interventions.
The ANRiN Project and its partners aim to ensure that these efforts reach the most vulnerable populations, ultimately contributing to Nigeria’s broader socio-economic development.(NAN)
