Lamentation
By Mohammed Ahmed Kaigama
Bauchi, May 14, 2018 (NAN) The Civil Society Network on Malnutrition ( CSO) in Bauchi State has decried the over reliance on donor agencies for the funding of nutritional interventions.
The State Coordinator of the Network, Mr Chindo Sodangi , said this in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Bauchi.
“The low budget allocation and its release have always led to over reliance on donor agencies for funds to implement nutritional interventions.
” Only 50 per cent of funds budgeted for the scale-up of nutrition are released.
“Consequently, the sustainability of these interventions is not certain,” he said.
According to him, financial resources for nutrition are lacking which has made those in charge to rely on external assistance from donor agencies.
“This is undermining the sustainability of nutrition programme in the state,” he said
Sodangi said that many key interventions for maternal, infant and young child nutrition were seldom implemented.
He, however, suggested the need for better and effective policies to address the huge problem of malnutrition.
The coordinator appealed to government to invest more in maternal nutrition, infant and young child feeding to stop the unnecessary death of children every year.
Sodangi also appealed to the three tiers of government to increase budgetary allocation and harmonise all funding allocated to parastatal agencies to enhance nutrition among the people.
NAN reports that in July 2016, the UNICEF Nigeria’s representative gave a startling revelation of how Nigerian children were dying of malnutrition.
This prompted both the Federal and state governments to set necessary machinery in motion to address the situation. ]
They came up with the idea of serving school children launch on daily basis. (NAN).
MAK/UDO/PAD
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Edited by Udochukwu Ifionu/Peter Dada