Mr Bashir Muhammad, the Permanent Secretary, Kaduna State Planning and Budget Commission (PBC), has urged Local Government Area
(LGA) Nutrition Focal Persons (NFPs) to improve their responsibilities for better nutrition indices in the state.
Muhammad, who doubles as the Chairman of the State Committee on Food and Nutrition (SCFN), made the call in Zaria, Kaduna State, at the opening of a three-day quarterly review meeting of NFPs across the state’s LGAs.
Muhammad, represented by the Director, Development Aid Coordination, PBC, Mrs Linda Yakubu, decried the poor outcome of the last meeting held with the local government NFPs .
“We felt discouraged to the point of contemplating to hold another meeting, but due to your importance in ensuring the set objectives in improving nutrition, we organised this quarterly review meeting,” he said.
He noted that the NFPs were saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that all nutrition interventions in LGAs were implemented under the PBC’s watch.
The SCFN chairman also noted that the committee was saddled with responsibility of ensuring that whatever was contained in the Kaduna State Multi-Sectoral Plan of Action on nutrition, should also be implemented at LGA levels.
He, therefore, said the review meeting was to interact with the LGAs NFPs to hear what they were doing in the various LGAs in line with the nutrition action plan.
He urged the LGAs NFPs to improve, going forward to reflect what they ought to have developed as their Annual Operation Plan, which would be reviewed in the meeting as a supposed guide for their activities in the last two quarters.
Earlier, the Director, Development Aid Coordination, PBC, Mrs Linda Yakubu, said the essence of the meeting was to review the Annual Operational Plan for the 23 LGAs in Kaduna.
Yakubu, represented by Ms Hauwa Baba, said the meeting was also to review updates on implementation of the annual operational plan and build capacity of the NFPs on appraisal tool.
A supporting partner of the meeting, Jessica Bartholomew, the State Coordinator of Civil Society Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN), commended the PBC for ensuring implementation of their mandate.
She explained that, in spite of numerous challenges such as cash backing and other government protocols, the SCFN had been appraised of its task towards ensuring that the needful was done by the NFPs, to enhance nutrition.
Another supporting partner, Rahila Maishanu, representative of NAFDAC, congratulated the SCFN for the feat it had achieved in enhancing nutrition indices.
In comparison with other states across Nigeria, she said better nutrition indices in Kaduna superceded many states in Nigeria.
Also, Muhammad Madaki, the Zonal Coordinator (Zone 1) of the State Primary Health Care Board, noted that such review meetings was critical to improving nutrition indices.
On behalf of other Zonal Coordinators (2 and 3), he said the NFPs were key to the success of the SCFN.
He urged the NFPs to be diligent in implementing the nutrition action plan however the numerous challenges, including finance.
The review meeting was also supported by UNICEF, among others.
