From Mika’il Tsoho, Dutse
Jigawa Coalition of Civil Society on Nutrition (JICON),has called on the Jigawa state government to release the 2019 funds budgeted to reduce the level of malnutrition among the children in the state.
This was contained in a statement signed and issued to news men by the chairman of the coalition, Comrade Shu’aibu Musa Kafin Gana in Dutse the state capital.
”As this year 2019 is about to runs out, there is need for the state government as usual to release the budgeted figure of matching grant and other budgets earmarked in all the relevant nutrition specific and sensitive Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the state.
“To pursue the actualization of MASAKI program in 27 LGAs of the state by providing the needful for the program to succeed; these would surely assist pregnant mothers and their babies to have full nutrition within the first 1,000 days of the children lives, these would automatically impact in reducing the stunting rate, as Jigawa and kebbi states are the highest in the country with stunted children under the age of five with 68%, followed by Yobe state with 65% respectively (NDHS 2018)” the statement said.
The statement added that, more awareness creation in radio, television, community and facility approaches on infant and young child feeding practices, targeting pregnant mothers, care givers and husbands in the state be intensify.
The statement then laud the state government for the released of funds for Ready to use therapeutic food (RUTF) matching grant of N150 million in 2017, and another N150 million in 2018, which according to the statement, this effort of course has yielded positive results in all the outpatient therapeutic program centers (OTPs) in curing severe acute malnutrition (SAM).
Never miss a moment! Get the stories shaping Nigeria, delivered straight to your phone. Follow Peoplesdaily Newspaper on WhatsApp for breaking news, exclusive reports, and the headlines everyone will be talking about, before anyone else.
