Committee decries retrogressing nutrition indices in FCT

By Stanley Onyekwere

The FCT Committee on Food and Nutrition has described as unacceptable the
continuous retrogressing nutrition indices in the Territory.
This is coming after a three-day orientation on nutrition situation Nigeria, and the linkages between state committee on food and nutrition (SCFN) Technical Planning Committees (TPC) and the Area Councils,
A statement from Public Relations Officer, FCT Primary Healthcare Development Board, Reginald Uhegbu disclosed that the orientation, which was under the aegis of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) advancing nutrition was aimed at making participants understand the nutrition situation in Nigeria including key statistics and causes and consequences of malnutrition as well as policies developed at global, regional and national level to address malnutrition.
It added that it also aimed at highlighting the multisectoral nutrition coordination framework including the composition, roles and responsibilities of nutrition coordination committees.
The committee noted with concern that stunting rate in the FCT is now at 21.2%, underweight is 12% while wasting is 39%. Infant feeding practices (Exclusive Breastfeeding) it further noted declined from 52% in 2017 to 38.9% in 2021, and that minimum dietary diversity also declined from 25% to 11.3% while bottle feeding increased from 19% to 34%.
The committee however, stated that all nutrition stakeholders are tackling the ugly trend by formulating the FCT multisectoral plan which is currently awaiting approval by the FCT Administration.
“During the orientation, participants were informed of the various roles and linkages between different nutrition coordinating committees in the State like the National nutrition Network which are to meet on annual basis with the SCFN to share experience and deliberate on progress, challenges and chart a way forward for the subsequent year.
“The linkages between the state and Area Councils was also described as key in upgrading the nutrition in the FCT but pointed out that the FCT State committee on food and nutrition (SCFN) is responsible for planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting in the FCT, but that the Area Council Committee on food and nutrition (AC CFN) oversees the work of all nutrition activities in wards and communities in the Area Councils.
“Participants were further informed that Area Council Committee on food and nutrition was similar to the state committee but with their mandate spelt out with the Vice Chairman of the Area Council as the Chairman.
“Also, the SCFN was also advised on the need to have Monitoring and Evaluation subcommittee to monitor and evaluate all activities of the committee with a good data base to keep accounts and relevant information through vertical and horizontal collation of data from the Area Councils on order to monitor progress, changes and impact”, the statement added.
Earlier, a consultant to USAID on nutrition, Sean Maher, urged the participants to come up with a viable plan from the Area Councils to the state in executing all nutrition activities in the FCT.
At the end of the three day intensive orientation exercise, the committee made recommendations which was aimed at enhancing the nutrition status of the FCT which includes establishment of home gardens at all levels from the Presidency to the grassroots, the need to have data on the nutrition situation of the Territory by Area Councils, in order to ensure that resources and key nutrition interventions are channelled to where they mostly needed and the need to train nutrition desk officers in the Primary Health Care Centres on documentation of nutrition data.
It further recommended that Area Council committee on food and nutrition should be strengthened to function better by being active in all nutrition matters and the need to train the focal persons on their roles and responsibilities.