Nutrition: Niger hailed for budget improvement

The Niger State Government has been hailed for scaling up the budgetary provisions from N80 million in 2017 to N210 million in 2020.
While commending the government, the Executive Secretary, Civil Society Scaling up Nutrition in Nigeria, Beatrice Eluaka, disclosed that children in the state cannot grow normal brain as future leaders without proper nutrition.
She said during a high level advocacy and policy dialogue on the nutrition situation in Niger State, organized by the State Government in collaboration with Partnership for Improving Nigeria Nutrition Systems and CS-SUNN, held in Minna, that the budget improvement has reduced the stunting and loss of children in the state drastically.
Eluaka scored Niger State high, but charged that more needed to be done in the state in tackling issues of nutritious foods.
While commending the multilateral partnership and policy adoption by the state government, she urged the State Planning Commission to further scale up the budget line for nutrition in order to achieve the implementation level.
In his presentation, the Project Manger of CS-SUNN, Sunday Okoronkwo, confirmed a scale-up in the state of 163 per cent nutritional growth and 57.1 per cent performance as of 2019, which he ascertained as impressive.
Similarly, Niger State Nutritional officer, Asma’u Abubakar Mohammed, confirmed that the state women have improved in terms of exclusive breastfeeding and adopting local foods supplement for nutritional development, which she said is quite remarkable.
In his remarks, the Secretary to the State Government, represented by the Permanent Secretary Economic Affairs, Alhaji Baba Wachiko Yahaya, described nutrition as a multi-sectoral approach that needed to be scaled up from communities to villages down to ward level, local governments and state, he stated that CS-SUNN must synergise with state assembly as part of high level advocacy to scale nutrition up in Niger State.
The Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Mamman Musa, reiterated that Governor Abubakar Sani Bello’s administration has prioritised nutrition as number one sectoral approach in the state.
Musa said it is satisfactory as the state is scored the best in the country in terms of scaling up nutrition.