NAIROBI – Kenyan government has teamed up with EU and the UN agencies to launch a four-year programme to help prevent child and maternal malnutrition in the East African nation.
The meeting would bring together members of the SUN Business Network, the Civil Society Alliance, the Donor Network, UN Network agencies and development partners supporting the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement in Kenya, including the EU delegation in Kenya and many members of civil society.
Minister of Health James Macharia said ahead of the meeting on Wednesday in Nairobi, that the exercise seeks to help an estimated 2.8 million or one third of Kenyan children under the age of five who are stunted.
He said this has become imperative because malnutrition was a public health concern in Kenya, because it has cost the lives of children, undermined the healthy physical and cognitive development of thousands of others.
“In spite of Kenya’s economic growth over the past 20 years, we have been unable to reduce our high rates of malnutrition,” he said.
First Lady Margaret Kenyatta said the multi-sectoral programme marks a significant shift in Kenya’s approach to tackling malnutrition in the country.
She said all the partners have made a commitment to work together to help build the resilience of Kenya’s most vulnerable communities.
Kenyatta said a focus of the programme was to reduce the impact of the recurrent food shortages and crises that have undermined the health and development of communities in Kenya’s semi-arid and arid lands, using a multi-sectoral approach that focuses on prevention and treatment of malnutrition.
Marjaana Sall, EU Chargé d’Affaires, expressed the European bloc committed to the programme, because development was one of the bloc central goals.
“As well as having a detrimental impact on the economy, malnutrition hinders efforts to reduce poverty.
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“Recurrent and prolonged droughts have exposed Kenya’s arid and semi-arid counties to repeated food and nutrition crises,”she added.
Sall said the target populations are women and children under the age of five in the nine counties.
She said the aim was for partners and civil society to work together to strengthen health systems in these areas and to empower communities to cope better with the impact of drought and other crises.
Sall said it would involve adopting healthier practices, such as hospital births, exclusive breastfeeding, diversified and age appropriate infant feeding practices and better hygiene.
UNICEF Acting Representative Pirkko Heinonen said access to nutrition was a child’s right and it was a right that is “in our power to meet”.
She said malnutrition in children was particularly damaging since the effects are irreversible, resulting in permanent physical and cognitive impairment.
Heinonen said it has an impact on the individual’s quality of life and productivity, as well as on the national economy. (Xinhua/NAN)