The National Nutrition Financing Technical Committee, established with the backing of the World Bank’s Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) Project, has launched an advocacy effort to prioritise nutrition interventions in Nigeria’s 2025 national budget.

Speaking at the meeting on Monday in Abuja, Tanimu Yakubu, the director-general of the Budget Office of the Federation, stressed the need for substantial funding to address Nigeria’s growing food and nutrition crisis.

Mr Yakubu said ongoing socio-economic challenges had aggravated the food and nutrition crisis.

The committee includes stakeholders from various federal ministries, the Office of the Vice President, the Nigerian Governors Forum, and international partners like the World Bank.

It underscored the importance of expanding the nutrition budget in key ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs).

Mr Yakubu called for the integration of evidence-based nutrition interventions into the 2025 budgets of these MDAs and urged the adoption of a national nutrition budget tagging framework.

“This system will track resources dedicated to nutrition and ensure effective appropriation, releases, and implementation,” he said.

Ritgak Tilley-Gyado, task team leader of the ANRiN project, said nutrition had been included in Nigeria’s budget circulars since 2021 due to ongoing public financial management reforms.

Ms Tilley-Gyado said the reforms aimed to improve budget prioritisation and increase domestic nutrition resources.

She said they were part of broader efforts supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s SUSTAIN project across 12 Nigerian states.

“Over the past three years, Nigeria has seen a gradual increase in its federal budget allocation for nutrition from N10.8 billion in 2021 to N6.5 billion in 2023 and an expected N18.0 billion in 2024.

“This growth is attributed to the National Council on Nutrition, led by Vice President Kashim Shettima,” she said.

Uju Anwukah, Special Assistant to the President on Public Health, emphasised the importance of building on these gains by fostering innovative partnerships with the private sector.

Ms Anwukah also stressed the need to establish legislative committees on food security and nutrition to facilitate stronger collaboration between the executive and legislative branches.

(NAN)