The federal government has announced that about 2.5 million Nigerian children under the age of five years are suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM).
Therefore, the figure places Nigeria as the second country with the highest number of stunted children in the world.
This was disclosed by Prince Clem Agba, the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, during the kick-off of the 2020 Nigeria nutrition week which took place yesterday, 16th November in Abuja.
The minister said, “despite concerted efforts by the government in recent years, particularly in the areas of child nutrition and breastfeeding, malnutrition (and other public health issues) these issues have remained a challenge”.
He further stated the challenge “must be addressed through the implementation of innovative policies and strategies that are appropriately funded, data-driven, sustainable and optimized in terms of transparency and accountability for the efforts to yield the desired results”.
The Federal government, he added, “must also continue to work collaboratively across all levels of governments, and hand-in-hand with the private sector and development partners in this regard”.
He however, regretted that Nigeria’s food and nutrition situation and the attendant poor global image in terms of economic and development milestones are major concerns to the federal government.
The new development, he added, has forced Federal government to create a platform to mobilise nutrition stakeholders towards addressing the challenge of malnutrition, which has been termed “the silent killer”.
The platform is a week-long “Nutrition Campaign Week”.