The Chairman of the Kaduna State committee on food and nutrition (SCFN), Mr. Bashir Muhammad says the state government is committed to funding and ensuring viable policies for addressing malnutrition.
Muhammad stated this on Friday at the closing of a two-day UNICEF-supported review and development of the 2024 Annual Operational Plan (AOP) for food and nutrition with 23 LGA Nutrition Focal Persons (NFPs) in Zaria, Kaduna State.
Muhammad, who doubles as the permanent secretary of the Kaduna State Planning and Budget Commission (PBC), said stakeholders and MDAs in food and nutrition in the state were brought together to contribute their quota to reducing the scourge.
He added that the state government stood firm on funding areas of food and nutrition in all its LGAs.
“I don’t think funding is a challenge for the state, but rather the issues of insecurity in some of the LGAs; chairmen of LGAs do contribute certain amounts of money monthly for food and nutrition,” he said.
The SCFN chairman, however, stated that other challenges were being tackled strategically and gradually.
On one of the challenges hampering the sustainability of nutrition in the state, he suggested swapping staff, especially NFPs, instead of transfers.
“It is better that authorities, especially in the LGAs, interswitch NFPs with other LGAs instead of transferring, which at times leaves some vacuum that hampers the realization of food and nutrition activities,” Muhammad said.
Also commenting on surmounting the challenges of policies on food and nutrition, he noted the existence of the Kaduna State Economic Planning Board, coordinated by the PBC and Ministry of Local Government.
He explained that at the board’s meetings, all LGA chairmen were mandated to discuss challenges dealing with food and nutrition in their various 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 Nigeria (CS-SUNN), the Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) project, Harvest Plus, and other development partners for their support in implementing the required policies on nutrition.
Earlier, the director, development aid coordination, PBC, Hajiya Aisha Mohammedsaid the workshop was to review the 2023 performance and develop the 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 the meeting was also aimed at improving the capacity of NFPs to implement nutrition activities at the LGA level.
Mrs. Victoria Adams of Alive & Thrive said that without reviewing the past, challenges and the way forward could not be known.
She urged the NFPs to use the knowledge they gained, while disclosing that Alive and Thrive had scaled up their support to six other LGAs in Kaduna, to ensure more successes in reducing malnutrition in the state.
Similarly, the representative of the ANRIN project, Hajiya Hawau Usman restated their support for nutrition activities in Kaduna State.
Representative of CS-SUNN, Mr. Eric John commended the stakeholders for contributing to nutrition development in the state.
He called on NFPs to ensure the input of peculiar and relevant activities to their various LGAs in their planned activities for nutrition.
Taking the NFPs through the concept of AOP, the facilitator, the ANRiN project, Hajiya Hauwa Usman said that in developing the AOP, there had to be consistency, coherency, clarity, and impact.
She tasked the NFPs with key areas needing concentration when developing an AOP, such as a strategic plan, a long-term plan involving strategic objectives, time, money, skilled personnel, and knowledge.
She also stressed the need for effective implementation of planned activities and how they could be carried out.
“In making an operational plan, you must have a goal that you want to achieve,” she said.
