By IJEOMA UKAZU
Globally, malnutrition is a major public health concern linked to the poor cognitive development of children, however, there need to be nutrition-sensitive programmes to change the tide.
Data derived from the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, states that malnutrition is a direct or underlying cause of 45 percent of all deaths of under-five children.
The UN agency said Nigeria has the second-highest burden of stunted children in the world, with a national prevalence rate of 32 percent of children under five, adding that an estimated two million children in Nigeria suffer from Severe Acute Malnutrition, SAM, but only two out of every 10 children affected is currently reached with treatment. Seven percent of women of childbearing age also suffer from acute malnutrition.
Nutrition experts revealed that the first 1,000 days of a child’s life offer a unique window of opportunity for preventing undernutrition and its consequences but poverty resulting in lack of access to nutritious food predisposes people to poor nutrition giving rise to a high chance of malnutrition.
With the aim to change the malnutrition trajectory in Nigeria, UNICEF instituted intervention support programmes targeted at reducing malnutrition in the country.
This intervention includes; Support the government to implement the National Plan of Action on Food and Nutrition by strengthening health and community systems and fully integrating nutrition into all aspects of the primary health care, PHC, system, with a particular focus on community management of acute malnutrition, CMAM, infant and young child feeding, IYCF, interventions and micronutrient supplementation.
UNICEF’s nutrition interventions are also aligned and convergent with other sector interventions, including those related to antenatal care, the prevention and control of pneumonia and diarrhoea, Immunisation, deworming, distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets, and adolescent girls and maternal nutrition.
Also, the UN agency’s nutrition programme complements the efforts of other United Nations agencies and NGOs, with nutrition-sensitive interventions geared towards a shift from emergency to development with long-term nutrition interventions that address stunting and SAM. The UK’s Department for International Development, DFID, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, CIFF, the European Union, the governments of Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands are important nutrition partners.
Since 2009, UNICEF has been supporting Nigeria’s community-based programme for the treatment of severe acute malnutrition. Since then, the programme has grown significantly, to become one of the largest UNICEF-supported treatment programmes in the world.
UNICEF works to prevent malnutrition by supporting the education and counselling of mothers and caregivers on how to adequately feed their children, and by providing free micronutrient supplements to children and pregnant women.
With the growing potential for domestic budgets to fund nutrition interventions, UNICEF is increasingly focused on strengthening policies, government systems and accountability to ensure adequate financing of nutrition.
Recognising geographical differences in the scale of malnutrition, the child-friendly organisation supports service delivery in the north of the country, including humanitarian nutrition assistance, while providing policy advice at the federal and state levels, helping to increase the ability of the government and partners to coordinate the nutrition sector, proactively identify risk factors for the nutrition status of the population –including poor harvest yields, worsening purchasing power and poor feeding behaviours – and implement measures to mitigate for these.
According to a joint press statement issued by the Executive Director of UNICEF, Henrietta Fore, and the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, they stated that the rate of excluding breastfeeding has risen from 17 percent in 2013 to 29 percent in 2018.
The statement reads, “Exclusive breastfeeding rate with it current rate in Nigeria is put at 29 percent for infants aged 0-6 months leaving a whopping 71 percent of infants not enjoying the benefits of breast milk in their formative years.”
UNICEF and WHO noted that the 29 percent remains significantly below the target of 50 percent set by the World Health Assembly to be achieved in 2025 and the Sustainable Development Goal, SDG, target for 2030.
The duo said, “In many countries, the pandemic has caused significant disruptions in breastfeeding support services while increasing the risk of food insecurity and malnutrition.”
Experts said, more efforts and dedication from the government and partners are needed to scale up the exclusive breastfeeding rate as well as combat childhood malnutrition in order to meet the stated target.