CSO coalition urges Kaduna to fund maternal, child nutrition

Civil Society Scaling-Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN) has called on Kaduna State government to increase its funding for maternal and child nutrition through health and agriculture ministries. At a stakeholders meeting in Kaduna, CS-SUNN also called on the government of Kaduna, Nasarawa and Niger states to implement the five-year National Strategic Plan of Action for […]

Civil Society Scaling-Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN) has called on Kaduna State government to increase its funding for maternal and child nutrition through health and agriculture ministries.
At a stakeholders meeting in Kaduna, CS-SUNN also called on the government of Kaduna, Nasarawa and Niger states to implement the five-year National Strategic Plan of Action for Nutrition, expected to end in 2019, and release funds to support nutrition for women and children across their local governments.
Chairman of the steering committee for CS-SUNN, and president of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria, Prof Ngozi Nnam, urged Kaduna State to promote exclusive breastfeeding “through extension of maternity leave to six months from the current three months.”
The request came amidst concern over the prevalence of malnutrition and stunting among children in Kaduna State.
Nearly six in 10 children are malnourished, and four out of every 10 are considered too short for their age in Kaduna, even though 28% of them are already faced with Vitamin A deficiency.
The figures also showed that 6.2% of Kaduna women are malnourished and 23.4% of them have iron deficiency.
Hadiza el-Rufa’i, the wife of Kaduna State governor, described the figures as “disturbing implication considering the fact that women menstruate monthly and bear children.”
She added: “These poor nutrition indices will not be accepted. Appropriate actions must be taken without delay to drastically reduce the incidences.”
She said her husband’s administration had released N180 million to improve coverage of routine immunisation and another N55 million to double the number of general hospitals rehabilitating children suffering severe acute malnutrition.
Kaduna has recently hired 19 nutritionists in its general hospitals amidst plans to push more of them into select 255 primary health centres to ensure “robust nutrition surveillance,” said el-Rufai.
“The aim is to detect malnutrition cases very early and take appropriate action. Fortunately we have community structures that can be equally used for nutrition surveillance.”
CS-SUNN called for civil society groups and nongovernmental organisations to promote sustained community health education on nutrition and support domestication of the NSPAN in states where they work.