From Umar Dankano, Yola
A Coalition of Civil Society Organizations under the auspice ‘Civil Society-Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria'(CS-SUNN) has charged the Adamawa state government to as a matter of utmost urgency jack up budgetary allocation to address children nutrition challenges bedeviling the state.
Stakeholders including ; activists, media practitioners and experts from MDA’s arrived at this position at a one day state-level engagement organized by the Coalition in Yola weekend pointing out that,despite the state’s abundant natural wealth, lies “a deepening nutrition crisis threatening its next generation”.
Sharing the findings of the coalition over the disturbing situation in the state, the
chairman, of the steering committee comrade Sodangi Adam Chindo said that nutrition concerns if unaddressed will erode decades of progress and stunt the state’s future prosperity.
He lamented that the state’s nutrition indicators based on data obtained from the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, NDHS.2023 have revealed that the nutrition crisis has worsened significantly over the last five years, showing a dangerous reversal despite national and global efforts to improve child health.
Chindo decried that, with stunting at 48.6%, wasting at 7% and underweight at 32.5% alongside widespread household food insecurity undermined child survival learning outcomes,workforce productivity and long term economic growth.
” Investing in nutrition is therefore not optional but a smart economic strategy as global and national evidence consistently shows that malnutrition weakens human capital and suppresses earnings”. Chindo highlighted.
He added that the Coalition is urging the Adamawa state government to extend maternity leave from three to six months across public sector and to encourage adoption in the private sector to enable exclusive breastfeeding and improve child survival.
Also Speaking, Ibrahim Bello, Adamawa State Coordinator of the Coalition(CS-SUNN) advocated for more funding for the child nutrition concerns noting that the Coalition has earlier engaged critical stakeholders from mainstreaming MDAs and that fruitful deliberations were reached.
Bello declared that the interface gave the stakeholders a platform to acknowledged the counterpart funding for 2024/2025 in the state while the gab became obvious calling on the state government to ensure improved child nutrition funds either through legislative or administrative approval.
He declared that, investing in nutrition today will save lives, strengthen human capital, and transform Adamawa in to a nutrition-secure and share economically resilient state urging civil society and NGO’s to sustain advocacy for more awareness and engage policy makers and monitor service delivery and budgets.
“We are advocating for improved child nutrition funds(CNF) and extension of three months paid maternity leave to six months period which will all female civil servants to exclusively breastfeed their children and to have renewed energy to contribute whenever they resume work”. Bello emphasized.
However, an official of the state Ministry of Budget, Economic and planning who was present at the dialogue and pleaded anonymity confirmed that the state government is working assiduously towards achieving those fundamental concerns.