By Sani Idris
The Chairman of Kaduna State Committee on Food and Nutrition (SCFN), Mr Bashir Muhammad, has said that the state Government is committed in funding and ensuring viable policies for addressing malnutrition.
Muhammad restated this on Friday at the closing of a two-day UNICEF-supported 2023 review and development of 2024 Annual Operational Plan (AOP) for food and nutrition with 23 LGAs Nutrition Focal Person (NFPs), in Zaria, Kaduna State.
Muhammad who doubles as the Permanent Secretary, Kaduna State Planning and Budget Commission (PBC), said that all the stakeholders and MDAs in food and nutrition in the state are brought together to contribute their quota in reducing the scourge of malnutrition.
He added that the state government is standing firm on funding areas of food and nutrition in the state and all its LGAs.
“I don’t think funding is a challenge for the state, rather the issues of insecurity in some of the LGAs. Chairmen of LGAs do contribute certain amount of money monthly for food and nutrition,”he said.
The SCFN Chairman however, stated other challenges, noting that the state is tackling it strategically and gradually.
Speaking on one of the challenges hampering on sustainanability in addressing malnutrition in the state, he suggested swapping of staff especially NFPs, instead of transfer.
“It is better that authorities especially in the LGAs inter switch NFPs with other LGAs instead of transfer which most at times live some vacuum that hampers on the realisation of food and nutrition activities, Muhammad said.”
Also speaking on surmounting the challenge of policies on food and nutrition, he noted the existence of the Kaduna State Economic Planning Board which is coordinated by the PBC and Ministry of Local Government.
He explained that in the board’s meetings, all LGA Chairmen are mandated to discuss challenges that has to do with food and nutrition in their respective LGAs.
“We make sure we come up with solutions and ideas on how they can support NFPs to ensure their mandate in surmounting the challenges,”he said.
Muhammad thanked UNICEF, Alive and Thrive, Civil Society Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigerian (CS-SUNN), Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigerian (ANRiN) project, Harvest Plus among other development partners for their support in implementating the required policies on improving nutrition activities in the state.
Earlier, Hajiya Aisha Mohammed, the Director,
Development Aid Coordination, PBC, said the workshop was to review the 2023 performance and develope 2024 AOP for the 23 LGAs.
She noted that the main aim was to document current nutrition activities across the 23
LGAs, and also document the barriers and
opportunities for optimal nutrition practices.
Muhammed therefore said that the meeting was also aimed at improving the capacity of NFPs on programmes implementation of nutrition activities at the LGAs level.
In a goodwill message, Mrs. Victoria Adams of Alive & and Thrive, said without reviewing the past, challenges, way forward, cannot be known.
She urged the NFPs to make use of the knowledge they gained, while disclosing that Alive and Thrive had scaled up it support to six other LGAs in kaduna to ensure more successes in reducing malnutrition in the state.
Similarly, Hajiya Hawau Usman, the representative of ANRIN project, restated thier support for nutrition activities in Kaduna state.
Also in a goodwill message, Mr Eric John, representative of CS-SUNN, commended all the stakeholders in contributing to nutrition development in the state.
He called on all NFPs to ensure inputing activities that are peculiar and relevant to their respective LGAs in thier plan activities for nutrition.
Taking the NFPs through the concept of AOP, the facilitator, Hajiya Hauwa Usman of ANRiN project, said in developing the AOP there have to be consistency, coherency, clearity and impact.
She tasked the NFPs on key areas which needed concentration on when developing an AOP such as strategic plan, which is a long time plan that involve Strategic objectives, time, money, skilled personnel and knowledge.
She also stressed on the need of effective implementation of planned activities and how it could be carried out.
“In making an operational plan, you must have a goal that you want to achieve”,she said.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
