The Oyo State Government, in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), has called for firm, multisectoral commitments to high-impact nutrition interventions for children across the South-West region.
The call was made at a one-day meeting on Integrated Multisectoral Nutrition Programming held on Tuesday in Ibadan.
The meeting, which brought together key policymakers from the six South-West states, aimed to secure concrete political commitments to accelerate coordinated nutrition actions to improve child wellbeing and protect child rights across the region.
In his remarks, the Oyo State Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Mr. Seun Asamu, said malnutrition is not just a health issue but one that cuts across budgeting, agriculture, education, and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH).
Asamu noted that, in response to children’s nutritional needs, the state government had constituted the State Committee on Food and Nutrition (SCFN). He was represented at the meeting by the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Mr. Julius Ayanleke.
The commissioner also praised the impact of the Nutrition for 774 Local Government Areas (N-774) initiative, launched in 2025 by the Federal Government. He described N-774 as a grassroots, multisectoral program aimed at combating malnutrition across all local government areas and strengthening the recognition of nutrition as a national priority.
Mr. Muhammad Okorie, UNICEF Programme Manager, Lagos Field Office, emphasized that nutrition is a critical child rights issue. He warned that failure to address it could deprive children of essential intellectual development, with often irreversible consequences.
“To get nutrition right, we must focus on the first 1,000 days of life, beginning with exclusive breastfeeding and timely introduction of complementary feeding,” he said. He highlighted stunting as a key outcome of malnutrition and stressed the need for coordinated institutional frameworks at federal, state, and local levels to tackle the issue.
Okorie added that UNICEF’s Child Nutrition Fund (CNF) is transforming how governments address malnutrition among children and women.
Also speaking, Sr. Folasade Adeyemi, Chairman of the Association of Local Government Chairmen (ALGON) in Ogun, expressed readiness to partner with UNICEF and the Federal Government to ensure the success of the CNF and N-774 initiatives.
The meeting brought together Permanent Secretaries and Executive Secretaries of State Primary Health Care Management Boards from Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Oyo states.
