Addressing funding gap to save millions of Nigerian children from dying of malnutrition

​By Philip Yatai, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)

Recent survey by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) indicates that malnutrition accounts for the death of 2,300 Nigerian children daily.

It also notes that more than 2.5 million children under the age of five are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and are likely to die if adequate funding is not provided to treat them.

Beside this, UNICEF’s Nutrition Advocacy Specialist, Dr Zacharia Fusheini, says that 37 per cent of Nigerian children does not have access to nutritious foods, observing that the country parades the highest number of stunted children in the world.

Fusheini notes that out of the 500,000 children UNICEF targeted for treatment in 2016, only 400,000 were treated due to lack of funds.

In the light of this, stakeholders have continued to call for improved funding of the health sector and nutrition in particular to deal with malnutrition.

According to them, the scourge threatens the growth of the country by silently eliminating children; the crucial class that determines the nation’s future.

But the Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Dr Lanre Tejuoso, at a recent workshop on malnutrition in Abuja, thanked UNICEF for promising to treat 600,000 malnourished children in Nigeria in 2017 out of the 2.5 million.

He, however, added that the country needed precisely N95 billion to treat the remaining 1.9 million malnourished children.

Tejuoso reminded the participants of Federal Government’s several commitments to addressing inadequate funding in the health sector, noting that not much had been done so far.

He recalled that a law was passed in 2014 to ensure that at least one per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund should be allocated to the Basic Health Fund.

“It has been two years and it has not been implemented. As law makers, we are supposed to appropriate fund for every aspect of health and with more focus on nutrition, given the current indices.

“The change we are looking for in health must start by obeying this law as our contribution to encourage development partners and private sector to participate,’’ the chairman said.

Concerned citizens recall that Nigeria signed up to the Scaling-up Nutrition Movement in 2011 and the global Nutrition for Growth Compact in 2013.

According to them, with the agreement, the country is committed to tackling its high rates of malnutrition, but Nigeria has failed to allocate adequate funds to scale up nutrition interventions.

They also recall that Nigeria had on Sept. 8, 2015, adopted the National Strategic Plan of Action on Nutrition from 2014 to 2019.

The policy is expected to reduce stunting by 20 per cent, severe acute malnutrition by 15 per cent and increase exclusive breastfeeding by 50 per cent in 2019. The development came with high expectations.

They express concern that the expectations and hope of thousands of hopeless malnourished children is dashed when the breakdown of the 2017 budget indicated that only N51 billion was allocated to the health sector as capital expenditure.

“This is not even up to the amount needed to treat the 1.9 million malnourished children in the country.

“Cleary if we continue this way, Nigeria will continue to contribute the second highest number of child’s death in the world,’’ Tejuoso said.

Buttressing his point, Mrs Beatrice Eluaka, Project Director, Civil Society Scaling-Up Nutrition in Nigeria, explained that at the extreme, nutrition could be a matter of life and death.

According to her, the situation can be prevented if the mother and the baby have access to quality food in the first 1,000 days of the child.

“The 1,000 days from pregnancy to the second birthday of a child is a pivotal moment that determines a child’s destiny.

“This is because good nutrition helps develops strong brain and bodies and builds strong immune system that guarantees children’s chances of survival and protecting their whole lives.

“This would allow our children the opportunity to not just survive, but also reach their full potential in life and contribute to building Nigerian economies.

“As children grow stronger, so do the communities and the country at large, thus ending the cycle of poverty,’’ she said.

She stressed that investing in good nutrition would avert future spending on healthcare and create a healthy and active workforce, thereby, increasing productivity of the nation’s populace.

In the light of this, stakeholders on nutrition faulted Federal Government’s plan to expend huge amount of money in its planned school feeding programs.

According to them, such money should have been channeled to where it would make more impact by ensuring that mothers and children below age five have access to good nutritious food.

Dr Chris Isokpunwu, Head of Nutrition, Federal Ministry of Health, therefore, called for improved nutrition in the schools’ feeding programme.

He nonetheless noted that the programme left a lot of gaps because nutrition indices were based on children under five.

“Therefore, feeding children who are between six and 11 years three times a day would achieve nothing.

“But we also must realise that nutrition is not the only priority in the health sector. There are lots of other competing priorities.

“nothwitstanding, improved funding for nutrition is necessary to ensure the survival and healthy development of our children to whom the future of this country belongs.

“Although, as you may be aware, the paltry sum of N2.4 million budgeted for nutrition in 2016 was never released, we are hopeful for a change in 2017’’ he said.

Sharing similar sentiments, Mr Olumide Okunola, World Health Organisation’s Senior Health Specialist, underscored the need for government to prepare enough funds upfront to effectively tackle malnutrition.

“We don’t have to always do things at emergency. If we plan up front, we will solve the root cause of malnutrition through nutrition specific and nutrition sensitive interventions.

“The first 1,000 days is a critical period in a child’s life that defines who they become, laying the foundation for their health and their productivity for the rest of their lives.

“If children do not get the right nutrition in the first 1,000 days, their immune systems and brains will not develop properly, creating gaps and inequalities that will last a lifetime and often get bigger as they grow older,’’ he observed.

He observed that inequalities were passed down across generations to perpetuate the cycle of poverty, making the poor and less educated less likely to be able to afford or provide the right nutrition for their children.

“When a child’s development is stunted in the first 1,000 days, a lifetime of interventions can never reverse the damage and the child ends up a dependent and a liability to the nation,’’ he noted.

Dr Florence Oni, Nutrition Specialist, UNICEF in Kaduna, nonetheless, opined that much emphasis should be on social mobilisation and enlightenment campaign on proper feeding.

“Promoting early and exclusive breastfeeding; educating mothers about good nutrition and hygiene practices; and, among others, encourage farmers to produce diverse nutritious food are proven solutions that can help ensure children’s health are protected and their potential maximised.

“We can open up the full potential in all lives and, in turn, enable all children live healthy and productive lives by ensuring access to good nutrition as a right to all children,’’ she insisted.