With more than 35 million children affected by malnutrition, the National Nutrition Finance Technical Committee has called for increased budgetary allocation for nutrition interventions in 2025. The technical committee is asking that nutrition intervention be prioritised in the next budget and be expanded to meet the country’s needs. According to a recent statement, the committee made this call while on a courtesy visit to the Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu.
The committee, which was established under the Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) Project with the support of the World Bank, has emphasised the need to address the country’s food and nutrition crisis with a sense of urgency, given that it is continuously exacerbated by ongoing socio-economic challenges. According to the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) , malnutrition is a direct or underlying cause of 45 per cent of all deaths of under-five children. The non-profit estimates that at least 2 million children suffer from severe acute malnutrition.
Nigeria has the second highest burden of stunted children in the world, with a national prevalence rate of 32 per cent of children under five. To address this crisis, the non-profit demanded that evidence-based nutrition interventions must be prioritised in the 2025 budgets of relevant Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Ou.