Malnutrition Crisis: UNICEF Urges Bauchi Legislators To Step Up Intervention Efforts.

From Paul Orude Bauchi

Amidst soaring malnutrition rates in Bauchi State, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has called on the 31 lawmakers in the State House of Assembly to step up their commitment towards addressing the problem.

Report indicated an alarming 23,000 cases of severe malnutrition in Bauchi State between January and June this year — a 120 percent increase over the same period a year before.

UNICEF says malnutrition is the direct or underlying cause of 45 percent of all deaths in Nigeria of children under the age of five.

Reacting to the troubling data showing numerous children in the state at risk of death, the UNICEF Chief of Field Office, Bauchi, Dr. Nuzhat Rafique, urged the lawmakers to intervene more than before.

Rafique spoke on Wednesday in Jos, during a two-day advocacy and sensitisation meeting held, organised by the State Committee on Food and Nutrition in collaboration with the Ministry of Budget, Economic Planning, and Multilateral Coordination, with support from UNICEF.

She noted that despite huge funds allocated, the malnutrition crisis persists and urged the state legislators to ensure that resources were pooled at all levels through the Child Nutrition Fund (CNF) initiative in order to address the malnutrition crisis in the state.

“The CNF came to us at a global level and made efforts to bring the funds together with the British Government, the Bill and Bi Melinda Foundation, the Child Investment Trust Foundation along with UNICEF,” she said.

She therefore urged the lawmakers to commit themselves to making nutrition funds available for each constituency.

The UNICEF Chief believed that the commitment to pooling resources would aid prevention, cure, treatment and rehabilitation of malnutrition.  

“I would like you people (lawmakers) to feel from the heart,” she stressed.

“If you don’t feel from the heart, you cannot work for the children.

“You are fathers to all in your constituencies and literally this is your accountability.

“Whoever believes in God will get it done. Start thinking how much you can commit.

“Identify constituencies with the highest number of malnourished children.

“Everything we do for mothers and children is a testimony. In your constituency feel this is your last day and live your life as the last day. If you do this you will not have the courage to do anything wrong. It will make you very comfortable and think about the children”

Rafique also urged the legislators to ensure that Ready To Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) were distributed to constituencies or communities with malnourished children.