By Ahmad Umar
Gombe (Nigeria)– Worried by the increasing malnutrition in Nigeria, the United Nations Children Education Fund wants members of the State Houses of Assembly in North-East States of the country to appropriate adequate funds in 2018 budgets for health and nutrition.
UNICEF’s Chief Field Officer for Bauchi, Abdullai Kakai, who was represented by the Office’ Nutrition Specialist, Philomena Irene, made the call at the opening of a two day capacity workshop for lawmakers on universal Health Coverage held in Gombe on Tuesday.
He said the call has become necessary following the increasing rate of malnutrition in the country as the report recently released by Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey for 2016 in Nigeria has shown an increase in child wasting from 24.2 per cent to 31.5 per cent while stunting had equally increased from 34.8 per cent to 43.6 per cent.
According to him, the report shows that the Northern part of the country appears to be worse off as nearly half of all children’s death is related to poor nutrition.
He said investment in nutrition which is cost effective would help reverse these negative trends as well as boost Nigeria’s GDP.
“The World Bank in its 2017 report revealed that for every 1,000 naira invested on nutrition will yield a 16,000 naira return, showing that nutrition is for development of the nation and therefore any resource invested in it is not a loss, but a boost for the economy,” she stressed.
While commending the State legislators for responding positively towards the enhancement of health and nutrition of women and children through appropriation of resources for promotion of rights of children in their state budgets, she employed them to make adequate provision of funds in the 2018 budget.
“We plead with you to use your oversight role to track the release and implementation of allocated budget for health and nutrition in 2017 budget,” she appealed.
Earlier, while declaring the workshop open, the Speaker of the Gombe State House of Assembly, Abubakar Nasiru Nono, who was represented by the Majority Leader of the House, Amos Fabulous, described the workshop as very important and timely as it will go a long way in helping the legislators put more efforts in reducing the indices of malnutrition in their various States, especially Gombe State.
The aim of the workshop which brought together state legislators from the zone, civil society organizations and journalists was geared towards achieving the objectives of universal health coverage as well as promoting maternal and child nutrition.
