The United Nations Children’s Fund called on the Nigerian Government to increase funding for nutrition programming towards addressing malnutrition in the country.
According to the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS 2018), 12 million children in Nigeria are stunted.
The survey further showed that three million are wasted and 23.5 million children in the country suffer from anaemia due to malnutrition.
UNICEF Communication Specialist, Dr. Geoffrey Njoku, charged the government to jack up budgetary allocation for nutrition and step up efforts to address child malnutrition.
Njoku gave the charge on Wednesday at a media dialogue in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on child malnutrition, with the theme: “Investing in child malnutrition for the future.”
He said the issue around nutrition is huge, but the money available to tackle it is not enough.
Njoku also charged the media to mainstream the issues around child malnutrition to attract actions that would change the situation.
According to him: “The main objective of this media dialogue was to dissect issues around malnutrition so as to prompt journalists to do compelling stories that would attract the attention of government and other stakeholders to take necessary steps to address the challenge.”
UNICEF Nutrition Officer, Nkeiruka Enwelum, lamented that the worsening situation of child malnutrition in Nigeria was alarming and required urgent attention.
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Quoting the NDHS data, Enwelum said Nigeria ranked first in Africa and second in the world in terms of number of malnourished children.
She said the country is off the track to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2 aimed at achieving zero hunger by 2030.
She said 12 million children in Nigeria are stunted, three million wasted and 23.5 million anaemic due to malnutrition.
Speaking on the NDHS data, Enwelum said: “These are worrying statistics because they have an impact on the wellbeing of our children.
“Malnutrition can expose children to illnesses and consequently contributes to the likelihood of mortality.
“The nutrition situation in the country requires urgent attention.
“We also need to focus on implementing preventive actions and where we are unable to prevent it, then there is a need to put in place and facilitate access to treatment of all forms of malnutrition so that we can have a healthier population that can contribute to our economic growth.”
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