FOR a few years now, the news emanating from the country’s North-East geo-political zone has been anything but cheering. The devastating effects of the Boko Haram insurgency have left thousands of people from the area either homeless, dead or malnourished.
Malnourishment is a serious global problem, with children most affected. Statistics show that about eleven million children have stunted growth, worldwide, on account of acute malnutrition. Out of this number, 2.5 million are categorised as Severely Acutely Malnourished (SAM). No fewer than 2,300 children die daily as a result of lack of nutrients. A half of these deaths is believed to be caused by chronic malnutrition.
But, hope is on the way for malnourished children in Nigeria following the recent announcement by the World Bank that it will commit $350 million to fight malnutrition in the country. The financial package was unveiled last week by the bank’s representative in Nigeria, Ms. Luc Laviollete, during a consultative meeting on Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN). The amount covers a five-year period. The key aim of the project is to reduce child stunting in order to improve learning ability, school performance and lifetime productivity of Nigerian children, especially in the North-East and North-West zones that are ravaged by insurgency.
This World Bank intervention could not have come at a better time than now. Nigeria currently posts a dismal stunted children rate of 31.5 percent, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa. North-East and North-West states constitute more than 50 percent of this figure, which is well above the rate of malnutrition in all other African countries put together. Billions in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are reportedly lost annually due to the pernicious cycle of under-nutrition. Besides, Nigeria loses over $1.5bn in GDP to vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
The financial assistance also has the broader objective to expand utilisation of quality, cost effective nutrition services for women of reproductive age and children under two years in selected areas of the North-east and North-west of the country. In addition to the $350m World Bank lifeline, more technical assistance is expected from development partners. These include assistance from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Aliko Dangote Foundation. Participating states are expected to contribute N50m counterpart funding each year for the next five years.
But, a recent study by UNICEF said it will require $144m to treat at least two million underfed children in Nigeria and about $107m for malnourished children. It argued that to avert more deaths, the Federal Government should invest more in intervention services, especially in community-based management of acute malnutrition.
We commend this noble humanitarian effort to save the lives of malnourished children in the country. Experts say that the money coming from the World Bank can help avert three million cases of malnourished children, while the lives of 180,000 children can be saved.
The World Bank revealed recently that every investment in nutrition will yield high returns. It is also estimated that each dollar invested in intervention targeting stunting would bring about $10 in economic benefits, every dollar invested in anaemia prevention can yield $12, while a dollar invested in improving exclusive breastfeeding can yield as much as $35.
No amount of funding or technical assistance will be too much to give new hope to those displaced in the North-east, in particular, the millions of children whose lives are threatened by chronic malnutrition. The devastation of that part of the country is, unarguably, one of the toughest challenges facing the present federal administration and state governments in that region.
It will be recalled that last year, President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated the Presidential Committee on the North-east Initiative (PCNI) headed by Lt-Gen. T.Y. Danjuma. The committee, which also has Alhaji Aliko Dangote as deputy chairman, is to coordinate all humanitarian efforts on the resettlement of the displaced people, reconstruction of the region and restoration of normalcy and stability.
There are over 2.4 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who need urgent remedial measures to alleviate their plight. We urge the Federal Ministry of Health to sustain its ongoing strategic plan of action for nutrition, which provides guidance and innovation to the different levels of government. Currently, many humanitarian efforts are ongoing within and outside Nigeria to assist the victims crammed in IDP camps inside and outside the region. Most of the efforts are aimed at providing short-term emergency assistance.
The tasks of rebuilding the region, resettling the displaced persons and saving the children from malnutrition need to be tackled headlong. As T.Y. Danjuma recently said, funding remains a major problem because many of the pledges made during the fundraising ceremony last year are yet to be redeemed. Altogether, all hands must be on deck to restore normalcy and stability in the crisis-torn region. Saving the lives of the malnourished children should receive priority attention.