Chairman, Kaduna State Committee on Food and Nutrition, Bashir Muhammad, has said the state government is committed to funding and ensuring viable policies to tackle malnutrition in the state.

Mr Muhammad stated this on Friday at the closing of a two-day UNICEF-supported Review and Development of 2024 Annual Operational Plan for food and nutrition with 23 LGAs Nutrition Focal Person in Zaria, Kaduna State.

Mr Muhammad, who doubles as the Permanent Secretary, Kaduna State Planning and Budget Commission, said stakeholders and MDAs in food and nutrition in the state were brought together to contribute their quota in reducing the scourge.

He added that the state government stood firm on funding areas of food and nutrition in all its LGAs.

“I don’t think funding is a challenge for the state, rather the issues of insecurity in some of the LGAs; chairmen of LGAs do contribute a certain amount of money monthly for food and nutrition,” he said.

The SCFN chairman, however, stated that other challenges were being tackled strategically and gradually.

On one of the challenges hampering sustainability of nutrition in the state, he suggested swapping of staff, especially NFPs, instead of transfers.

“It is better that authorities, especially in the LGAs, inter switch NFPs with other LGAs instead of transfer which at times, leave some vacuum that hamper the realisation of food and nutrition activities,” Mr Muhammad said.

Also commenting on surmounting the challenges of policies on food and nutrition, he noted the existence of the state Economic Planning Board, coordinated by the PBC and Ministry of Local Government.

He explained that at the board’s meetings, all LGA chairmen were mandated to discuss challenges dealing with food and nutrition in their various LGAs.

“We make sure we come up with solutions and ideas on how they can support NFPs to ensure their mandate in surmounting the challenges,” he said.

Mr Muhammad thanked UNICEF, Alive and Thrive, Civil Society Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria, Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigerian project, Harvest Plus and other development partners, for their support in implementing the required policies on nutrition.

Earlier, Director, Development Aid Coordination, Hajiya Aisha Mohammed, said the workshop was to review the 2023 performance and develop 2024 AOP for the 23 LGAs.

She noted that the main aim was to document current nutrition activities across the 23 LGAs, and document the barriers and opportunities for optimal nutrition practices.

Mr Muhammed, therefore, said the meeting was also aimed at improving the capacity of NFPs on programmes implementation of nutrition activities at the LGAs level.

On her part, Mrs. Victoria Adams of Alive & and Thrive said without reviewing the past, challenges and the way forward could not be known.

She urged the NFPs to use the knowledge they gained, while disclosing that Alive and Thrive had scaled up its support to six other LGAs in Kaduna to ensure more successes in reducing malnutrition in the state.

Similarly, representative of ANRIN project, Hajiya Hawau Usman, restated their support for nutrition activities in the state

Mr Eric John, representative of CS-SUNN, commended the stakeholders for contributing to nutrition development in the state.

He called on NFPs to ensure inputting peculiar and relevant activities to their various LGAs in their planned activities for nutrition.

Taking the NFPs through the concept of AOP, the facilitator, Hajiya Hauwa Usman of ANRiN project, said in developing the AOP, there had to be consistency, coherency, clarity and impact.

She tasked the NFPs on key areas needing concentration when developing an AOP such as strategic plan, a long-term plan involving strategic objectives, time, money, skilled personnel and knowledge.

She also stressed the need for effective implementation of planned activities and how they could be carried out.

“In making an operational plan, you must have a goal that you want to achieve, she said.

(NAN)