The Federal government says it will make nutrition a priority in the new development plan of the nation.
The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Atiku Bagudu made the pledge at the ongoing Nutrition Leadership Summit and Nutrition Society of Nigeria (NSN) 2023 Pre-conference holding at Nixon Luxury Hotel, Abuja.
He also spoke on the plan of the administration to include nutritional consideration in national development plans, which is going to be reviewed in 2025.
It will be recalled that the Federal government had on September 5th Inaugurated the National Council on Nutrition and right there made a commitment to provide funding to tackle the challenges of malnutrition in Nigeria.
"The govt has on the 5th of September carried out inauguration of national COUNCIL ON nutrition, and there made commitment about the readiness of government to provide funding to tackle challenges of malnutrition that we have headway.
"What that means is that government is going to be committed. Also spoke about very effective plan to include nutritional consideration in national development plan, which is going to be reviewed in 2025."
"We will make nutrition a priority in the new development plan of the nation."
Bagudu also mentioned the involvement of the stakeholders, particularly, the multi-sectoral MDAs from agriculture and health, information, budget and national planning, saying that, "when everybody is involved , what it means is that we are going to reduce the scourge of malnutrition in the country."
According to him, "government is now more committed and has put nutrition on the front burner of its agenda and we are going to provide the necessary funding, the enabling environment is there because we have all the policy guidelines, we have the strategies which they promised they are going to review so that we can reduce this bad status of malnutrition in Nigeria".
Speaking on Nutrition value chain, President, Nutrition Society of Nigeria, Wasiu Afolabi, acknowledged that Nigeria has necessary policies in place like the multi-sectoral plan of action for food and nutrition in Nigeria, but lamented that the challenge had always been implementation.
"We have enabling laws, we also have other sectorial policies, in health, agriculture but the problem has always been the implementation.
"We have realised that even when funding was provided, the capacity of the workforce, the leaders must also be enhance so that the fund that is being provided can be utilised efficiently and judiciously.
On the directive that nutrition department should be created in the line ministries and MDAs of government, Afolabi said out of about 12 of them, only two had done that, women affairs and agriculture ministries, saying that the society is currently lobbying for the full implementation of the directive.
" In the last council of Food and Nutrition in September meeting, government specifically mentioned that each of the ministries and MDAs should go and identify means of implementing those directives.
"The society is working with all other stakeholders, especially, members in the National council on Nutrition to ensure implementation of that directive," he said.
The President, African Nutrition Societies, and past Past President, Nutrition Society of Nigeria,
Prof. Ngozi Nnam, said the event was geared towards solving the problem of nutrition in Nigeria."
"As nutrition challenges persist in Nigeria, it is essential to recognize leadership development as a fundamental aspect of the solution."
"As we all know, nutrition is foundation to national development, and this programme is focused on leadership to improve the workforce.
"Nutrition is the foundation for building strong and healthy individuals. It is only when we have healthy individual that they can make healthy contribution to improving and developing societies.
"We cannot talk about leadership without talking about improving nutritional quality of our society at large and when that is done, it is going to impact on what is on ground and helping Nigeria attend the SDGs," added.
On the high cost of living which can hamper peoples' effort to eat nutritional food, Nnam said, "one thing the society has to do is nutrition education."
According to her, over nutrition is trying to overtake under nutrition because the well to do in the society feel they have arrived and eat excess of their nutrition need, while the poor struggle to meet their needs.
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For her, enlightenment campaign on what to eat, food combination and quantity size and moderation should be the focus of the NSN.
"The for the poor, government should ensure that palliative can be scaled up to enable the poor be able to buy food and place it on their table.
"There is hope for improvement on our nutrition status. The NSN, whatever it can do should do something via advocacy, visit and convince government to invest more money in nutrition, so that together we can build a nutritious society," she said.
The event is sponsored by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Leadership Development for Accelerated Progress in Nutrition in Nigeria Project (LEDA-NN) in collaboration with the Nutrition Society of Nigeria (NSN) in Abuja.
The Summit served as a platform to share insights, knowledge, and strategies on how leadership can play a pivotal role in addressing the pressing nutrition challenges faced in Nigeria.
