UNICEF laments worsening child malnutrition in Nigeria

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has expressed worry over the worsening situation of child malnutrition in Nigeria.

According to UNICEF Nutrition Officer, Nkeiruka Enwelum, data from 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) indicates that Nigeria is off track to achieve United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 2 aimed at achieving zero hunger by 2030.

Quoting the data, Enwelum noted that Nigeria ranked 1st in Africa and 2nd in the world in terms of number of malnourished children.

At a media dialogue on child malnutrition with the theme: “investing in child malnutrition for the future”, Enwelum said 12 Million children in Nigeria are stunted, 3M wasted and 23.5M anaemic due to malnutrition.

Speaking on the NDHS data, Enwelum said, “These are worrying statistics because they have impact on the wellbeing of our children. Malnutrition can expose children to illnesses and consequently contributes to likelihood of mortality.

“The nutrition situation in the country requires urgent attention. We also need to focus on implementing preventive actions and where we are unable to prevent it, then there is need to put in place and facilitate access to treatment of all forms of malnutrition so that we can have a healthier population that can contribute to our economic growth.”

UNICEF Communication Specialist, Dr Geoffrey Njoku, charged the media to mainstream the issues around child malnutrition to attract actions that would change the situation.

Njoku called on government at all levels and stakeholders to increase funding for nutrition programming in Nigeria. He said the issue around nutrition is huge but the money available to tackle the issue is not enough.

According to him, “The main objective of this media dialogue was to dissect issues around malnutrition so as to prompt journalist to do compelling stories that would attract the attention of government and other stakeholders to take neccessary steps to address the challenge.”