The Civil Society Scaling-Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN) says the Partnership for Improving Nigeria Nutrition Systems (PINNS) has achieved remarkable progress in nutrition activities in five states piloted for the project.
Mrs Beatrice Eluaka, the outgoing Executive Secretary (CS-SUNN), disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja at a one-day stakeholders meeting of nutrition officers drawn from the five states and the FCT.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting is to discuss the achievement and lessons learnt from the PINNS project.
NAN reports that PINNS is a project aimed at increasing nutrition activities for children, pregnant women and breast feeding mothers sponsored by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
The five states where the project was piloted from 2018 as the first phase of the three years project are: Kaduna, Lagos, Niger, Kano, Nasarawa and FCT respectively.
Eluaka said that there were a lot of issues about nutrition activities before the coming up of PINNS project, adding that the project was able to correct all the perceived issues in all the piloted states when the project began.
She said that CS-SUNN through the PINNS project was able to reorganise the committees on food and nutrition in some of the states as well as replicate the committee in the states that didn’t have such.
“When we came on board, these committees present in some states were moribund, they were not active, nothing was happening because they were not cleared of their roles and responsibilities, but we were able to reorganize them as our first task through the PINNS project.
“We made so many efforts to bring these people together; we made this committee to understand their specific roles as a member of the state on food and nutrition, and as a member of the national committee on food and nutrition.
“We were able to develop a multi-sectoral plan of action with the document that guides the implementation of nutrition activities in the various sectors, we are very happy at our achievement, all the five states have now domesticated policies on food and nutrition,’’ she said.
She said that CS-SUNN through PINNS was able to educate the states committee on how to plan budget and make costing for nutrition activities and tracking of such budgets in order to make the sector work in Nigeria.
According to her, through the PINNS project, funding is now on the increase for nutrition activities in the states piloted for the first phase.
Mr Bamidele Omotola, CS-SUNN Board Chairman, who noted that malnutrition situation in Nigeria was now responding as a result of the action of the stakeholders, added that it could only be better if there were clear plans and programmes.
He said that if the PINNS programme in Nigeria was properly executed, as well as domestication of policies on nutrition, the issue of malnutrition would soon be a thing of the past.
According to him, to achieve the target goals of scaling up nutrition in Nigeria, a multi-sectoral plan must be implemented and policies on nutrition must be made to stand.
“A system must be made to work otherwise, people will just be doing the way they like, that is only when we can make a headway,’’ he stressed.
He further said that people must learn to consume the right kind of foods otherwise; they would continue to have the case of malnutrition in the country.
Hajia Asmau Mohammed, State Nutrition Officer in Niger, commended the PINNS project, adding that the state had benefited a lot from the project and had changed so many things about nutrition in the state.
According to her, policy on nutrition has been a challenge in Niger and that with the coming in of PINNS, the narrative has changed entirely.
“We have been able to develop the multi-sectoral plan, through-out the development, the validation as well as the approval, PINNS supported us, they gave us confidence on what we are doing.
“PINNS guides us with documents on what we do and what we are doing, apart from this, they have done a lot of capacity building especially in the area of advocacy; we have been able to reach-out to our leaders, stakeholders for them to understand issues as it relates to nutrition.
“The support from PINNS has gone a lot to make our job easy as the players in the state,’’ she said.
(NAN)