Buhari Govt Sets Up Committee To Address Hunger And Malnutrition In Nigeria

President Muhammadu Buhari‘s led government has announced the inauguration of an ad-hoc Technical Advisory Group to support the implementation of a 5-year National Multi-Sectoral Plan of Action on Nutrition (NMPAN).

The development was made known in a statement on Thursday, December 24 by Laolu Akande, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, SAN.

Naija News understands that the committee was set up to address hunger and malnutrition in Nigeria.

Akande noted that the vice president had constituted the group earlier in the week when he called a virtual meeting of the National Committee on Food and Nutrition. The SSA revealed that members of the team are drawn from the Office of the VP, Nigeria Governors Forum, Nutrition Society of Nigeria, Nutrition Partners Forum, Organised Private sector, Academia/ Research, Scaling Up Nutrition Secretariat at the Federal Ministry of Health, Civil Society groups, and the UN-Nutrition.

Akande quoted Osinbajo saying that the body “will provide high-level strategic advice and support to the Secretariat of the National Council on Nutrition on the National Policy on Food and Nutrition vision and strategy, thereby facilitating nutrition positioning and comparative advantage to enable maximum impact.”

“The mandate of the committee includes the provision of technical assistance to the NCN and Secretariat; facilitation of inter and intra-agency coordination, supervision and monitoring, and implementation of the NMPAN,” he noted.

The VP declared that the assignment would be executed by “developing a synthesised work plan for National Multisectoral Plan of Action on Nutrition; identifying and documenting the roles of each sector and MDA, as well as the relationship(s) between these roles and the achievement of nutrition outcomes, based on the NMPAN.”

“The group will work with the newly constituted National Committee on Food and Nutrition to define and train the secretariat on the capacity needs for the development and implementation of nutrition programs and projects as defined by the NMPAN.”

He added that the group will also “develop comprehensive advocacy, information and education strategy for the NMPAN.”

“We need more than ever to think holistically if we are to solve the issues of malnutrition, in my opinion we have embarked on a new era, where collaboration and active engagement of stakeholders to assist with implementing the NMPAN is embedded in our agenda and should propel us forward.”

In another news, the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says a new variant of COVID-19 has entered Nigeria and has been reported in the West African country.

Naija News reports that the director of the centre, John Nkengasong, made this known on Thursday at a virtual media briefing. According to Nkengasong, the new COVID-19 variant was first discovered in South Africa and has spread to other parts of the continent.