The Kaduna State government and its nutrition partners on Wednesday developed strategies to strengthen result-based nutrition intervention to address the scourge of malnutrition in the state.

Permanent secretary, Planning and Budget Commission (PBC), Bashir Muhammad, said in Kaduna at the nutrition partners’ coordination and review meeting that the move was to accelerate results in addressing malnutrition in the state.

Mr Muhammad, also the chairperson of the State Committee on Food and Nutrition, expressed optimism toward reducing malnutrition among maternal, adolescent, infant and young children in the state.

He commended the partners for supporting the state in addressing the scourge of malnutrition in the state.

The partners include United Nations Children’s Fund, Save the Children International, Alive and Thrive (A&T), Accelerating Nutrition Result in Nigeria (ANRiN) and Civil Society-Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN).

Others are National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), National Orientation Agency (NOA) and Kaduna Polytechnic.

He said the review meeting provided a platform to review progress and challenges and re-strategise for effective and cost-effective interventions that would provide the needed results.

“We want to see stronger working synergy and collaboration among the nutrition partners and between the partners and the state government to achieve better results,” he said.

The permanent secretary thanked all the partners for supporting nutrition activities to reduce the burden of malnutrition.

Director, Development Aid Coordination, PBC,  Linda Yakubu, said the goal of the coordination meeting was to sustain coordinated efforts toward reducing malnutrition in the state.

“We also want to share experience and innovative ideas that would improve nutrition programming and identify emerging opportunities that will accelerate the scaling up of nutrition interventions in the state,” she said.

Also speaking, the nutrition specialist, UNICEF Kaduna, Chinwe Ezeife, said the fund was supporting the state in delivering preventive and curative nutrition intervention.

Ezeife said that the support was under early childhood nutrition, nutrition for school-age children, adolescents and women and care for children with severe acute malnutrition.

Also speaking, the state team lead, A&T, Sarah Kwasu, said the group was implementing a five-year grant – Accelerating the Scale of Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition (MIYCN) – in Nigeria.

Ms Kwasu said the project was being implemented in Kaduna and six other states to enhance child health and development outcomes and save lives through a sustainable programme of optimum MIYCN.

(NAN)