Shareholders Advocate Partnership to End Malnutrition
In its bid to end hunger and improve nutritional diet, especially amongst children and those below the poverty line, stakeholders in nutrition have been charged to network, build partnerships and drive nutrition commitments in the country.
This charge was made at the yearly members convening of Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Business Network, an arm of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) with the theme, ‘The Business of nutrition: building partnerships for success,’ which had in attendance regional hub leads across five geopolitical zones in the country, as well as other members of the business network.
According to the country director, GAIN, Michael Ojo, a recent survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics (NSB) Nigeria’s Multi dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) reveals that 63 per cent of Nigeria’s 218 million populations are poor.
The survey also shows that 67 million of over Nigeria’s 100 million children are multi-dimensionally poor with child engagement indicator revealing that more than half of all children lack the intellectual stimulation that is critical to early childhood development.
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He however, noted that while nutrition indicators have moved from bad to worse, despite various investments and interventions by government, development organisations, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and the private sector, the country’s over 39 million MSMEs should take the bold step towards improving nutrition by making smart nutrition commitments.
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National Coordinator, SUN Business Network, Chinwe Owhorji said the MSMEs have their different challenges confronting them, while for some it is access to finance, market or developing the product itself, hence the rich network with people of experience and different levels of capacity, to leverage them to solve some of the challenges.
“With this event, we want to encourage partnerships, not just within SBN members but with other organisations and individuals to drive this change. This is one of GAIN’s initiatives towards supporting the private sector in addressing malnutrition because we understand that businesses are an important vehicle to convene safe and nutritious food to households, especially those at the bottom of the pyramid.
Speaking on its gender strategy, Owhorji noted that women entrepreneurs are very key to end malnutrition. “Women are responsible for the nutrition decisions in households so it is important that we get their voice into our programmes. Also the barriers for women entrepreneurs are still high as they cannot access funding like their male counterparts, hence we ensure that both genders can work together, drive inclusion and achieve their goal.”
Head of Operations, GAIN, John Pilaku, said synergy is very important around what businesses do in tackling malnutrition, “if we all pull our resources together as nutrition based businesses, we will achieve our aim of healthy diets. We have witnessed COVID-19, flooding and other vices that have affected businesses we have created a programme called, ‘Keeping food working,’ where businesses where supported. That first round has ended and we are looking at going on to support businesses to see how best they can produce more accessible, available and cost effective nutritious food. Hence, we want to support businesses to access funding to drive this cause for healthy diet.”
On his part, Hub lead, North West, Ene Unoogwu said with the nation’s millions of aerial lands, diversification to agriculture should be taken more seriously. “I believe that Nigerians can grow enough food that can feed ourselves and the whole of Africa. In my sector, statistics indicates that N16b worth of tomato puree was imported into Nigeria, which should never be. The government should put efforts and take agriculture more seriously.”
