NUTRITION partners in Kaduna State have called on the State Government to improve budgetary allocation to relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) for nutrition-specific and sensitive interventions in the 2020 budget.
The partners made the appeal in Kaduna on Friday when they paid an advocacy visit to the state Commissioner for Planning and Budget Commission (PBC), Mr Thomas Gyang.
The partners are Civil Society Scaling-Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN), Save the Children International, Alive and Thrive (FHI 360) and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Mr Silas Ideva, the CS-SUNN State Coordinator, who led the delegation, pointed out that malnutrition among women and children remained a major challenge to health and human development in the state.
Ideva, who was represented by Abdulrahaman Mikail, CS-SUNN’s Chairman, Sub-Committee on Finance and Fund Raising, said addressing malnutrition requires multi-sectoral approach and commitment at the state, local government and community levels.
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He said that several policy documents such as the Kaduna Multisectoral Plan of Action on Nutrition (KDMSPAN), the National Strategic Plan of Action on Nutrition, and the National Policy on Food and Nutrition, were adopted and developed by the government.
He, however, noted that nutrition funding to implement the policies and other nutrition programmes remained weak.
“We, therefore, call for the creation of nutrition budget lines in all relevant MDAs in the 2020 and timely release of the funds.
“In light of this, we equally seek participation to support the review of the costed Sector Implementation Plans and strategic plans by MDAs to ensure nutrition issues are captured.
“We also want to participate in the submission of the budget proposal to the PBC, townhall meetings and defence of proposal before the estimate committee,” he said.
Save the Children’s Nutrition Advocacy Adviser, Malam Isah Ibrahim said that three out of 10 children under five years in the state are malnourished.
Ibrahim noted that although the number of underweight children had reduced from 57.6 per cent in 2013 to 24.3 per cent in 2018, the number of stunted children remained at 50.5 per cent.
He also said that a total of 402 children died of malnutrition between 2016 and 2018 in the state, stressing that existing nutrition funding provisions are grossly inadequate to fight malnutrition.
He added that “at the moment, only two government agencies; PBC and Drugs Management Agency, have a clear nutrition-related budget line.
“There is also the problem of cash backing for approved funds for nutrition activities, making it nearly impossible for relevant MDAs to access the needed funds to implement nutrition activities.
“We also want the state government to ensure adequate funding for nutrition as enshrined in some of the government’s strategic and operational plans related to the nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific intervention.
“For example, an estimated N186 million is needed in the 2020 budget to implement the KDMSPAN and N60 million to implement Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition operational plan.”
Ibrahim further urged the state government to establish an agency to oversee the affairs of nutrition programmes in the state or upgrade Kaduna State Emergency Nutrition Action Plan into a full government agency.
Responding, Gyang assured the partners of the state government commitment towards improving the welfare of women and children in the state.
He said that PCB had directed relevant MDAs to submit costed nutrition activities from KDMSPAM to be captured in the 20230 budget.
“We will also do all that we can to ensure that outstanding funds for nutrition-related activities are released.
“We will continue to partner with critical stakeholders to curb the menace of malnutrition,’’ the commissioner said.
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