Experts Appeal To Federal Government To Fund War Against Malnutrition Threatening Over 11 Million Nigerians

Experts and stakeholders have made a collective appeal to the federal government to commit adequate funds to address the growing menace of malnutrition which has so far affected over 11 million Nigerians
They insisted that the best way to avert the danger posed by malnutrition is for the country to fund projects targeted at treating the millions of children stunted by malnutrition and create adequate awareness campaigns to prevent the menace.
Speaking at a one-day symposium on ‘malnutrition, child development and the media,’ organised by the Media Centre Against Child Malnutrition (MeCAM),  project manager at the Civil Society on Scaling Up Nutrition Nigeria (CS-SUNN), Sunday Okoronkwo, said that the country currently does not have proper funding to address the problem.
He warned that figures such as 11 million Nigerian children being stunted may be a poor representation of the reality.
Okoronkwo, who stood in for CS-SUNN project director, Mrs. Beatrice Eluaka, lamented that the country’s $912 million action plan on nutrition for the years 2014 through 2019 remains largely unfunded, with Nigeria’s $100 million counterpart funding of the policy hardly making it into the annual budgets.
According to him, the country’s 2017 budget has no provision for the plan which expires in 2019.
Speaking on ‘Dealing with nutritional Fads and Fallacies,’ chairman of CHRI, Dr. Aminu Garba called for declaration of emergency on malnutrition.
He advocated for sustained media engagement, among other steps, to address the many fallacies around the question of nutrition.
Garba stressed the need to debunk cultural claims that giving new born colostrum exposes him to witchcraft or that children and women should not eat meat or take adequate milk.
The national coordinator of MeCAM Nigeria, Remmy Nweke, said that the organisation evolved from the unique need for the media to respond to the national emergency on malnutrition.
He insisted that government’s funding to combat malnutrition is not “commensurate” to the volume and potential consequences of the unfolding crisis.
Representatives of other important stakeholders at the event are top pro-nutrition civil society groups, including Community Health and Research Initiative (CHRI), Scaling Up Nutrition Business Network Nigeria and Global Alliance on Improved Nutrition (GAIN).[myad]