Amidst Nigeria’s prevailing food insecurity and poverty, stakeholders say that partnership was key to ensuring that Nigerian children achieve good nutrition and the high level of stunting in children is stemmed.
Dr Oyediran Oyewole, a nutritionist and keynote speaker at a one-day stakeholder’s consultation meeting by Civil Society Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN) on the theme “Leveraging Partnerships for Sustainable Nutrition Programming in Oyo State” said every Nigerian must realise they are stakeholders in nutrition to ensure that nutrition indicators like stunting in children get reduced.
Oyewole said it is only by leveraging on partnership that the nutrition status in Oyo State can be better given that nutrition is multidisciplinary in nature and all relevant stakeholders to nutrition need to know their roles and carry out their expected duties.
According to him, “leveraging on partnership is all about bringing all relevant stakeholders in nutrition together to achieve better results. Tackling stunting will require leveraging on nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions.”
Oyo State nutrition officer, Mrs. Omolara Oladeji in a presentation on the malnutrition situation in Oyo State stated that the incidence of stunting in Oyo State is worrisome, and so the ongoing World Bank supported Accelerated Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) intervention.
According to her, all nutrition indicators in the state were less than 50 per cent, with one in every 9 under five children have been underweight and one in 18 thin for their weight.
CS-SUNN’s senior monitoring and evaluation officer, Mrs. Jayne Arinze-Egemonye said the meeting was to increase advocacy and collaboration of stakeholders to ensure improvement in food and nutrition security in Oyo State as well as identifying best practices to coordinate nutrition with increased buy-ins from stakeholders.
Oyo State CS-SUNN coordinator, Mr. Oluwasegun Adio said for improving nutrition safety, the group intends to increase advocacy visits to ensure increased funding and political support for issues on nutrition while engaging students to ensure appropriate behavioural change on nutrition.
Stakeholders in a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting urged continuous engagement of CSOs to stem the worsening nutrition indicators, educate and re-orientate all stakeholders on the issue of nutrition, sustain engagement with religious leaders to ensure they include issues on nutrition in their sermon as well as increased and timely release of funding for nutrition in the state.
YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
We Have Not Had Water Supply In Months ― Abeokuta Residents
In spite of the huge investment in the water sector by the government and international organisations, water scarcity has grown to become a perennial nightmare for residents of Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital. This report x-rays the lives and experiences of residents in getting clean, potable and affordable water amidst the surge of COVID-19 cases in the state.
and then