The right nutrition is an essential building block for health and well-being, especially in the first 1,000 days. It provides the best start for children, protecting against illness and developing strong brains and bodies that fuel their futures. Creating and funding nutrition budget line is a great step towards ending hunger and malnutrition in Nigeria. We believe that scaling up works and increasing financial investment in nutrition will stop many preventable deaths from malnutrition.
The Civil Society for Scaling-up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN) is the leading partner supporting PACFaH nutrition interventions.Following advocacy efforts and widespread dissemination of the NSPAN policy document to relevant stakeholders at the national and focal project states, PACFaH achieved increased awareness and support for the National Strategic Plan of Action for Nutrition.
We strengthened the capacity of CSOs and Nutrition Officers in relevant government ministries, departments and agencies to support them with the skills to advocate for adequate budgetary allocation and investment in nutrition and tracking of nutrition interventions in their focus areas. Through our training, Kaduna State government was able to recruit Nutrition Officers in all its Local Government Areas as required by the NSPAN to track Nutrition interventions carried out in their states.
We facilitated inter-sectoral collaboration amongst relevant government ministries departments and agencies to address malnutrition in Nigeria. This led to the successful adoption of the NSPAN and the creation of budget line items for nutrition in Nassarawa, Kaduna and Niger. (Check here to read statement by Permanent Secretary, Nigeria Ministry of Budget and National Planning demanding that all state create and fund nutrition budget lines and support nutrition interventions).
Our partnership with over 119 indigenous Civil Society Organizations and Faith Based Organization from PACFaH trained on Nutrition budget tracking and evidence based advocacy, these focal states were able to develop and monitor costed state specific plans of action for nutrition.
