As many as 214,931 children under five in Cross River State suffer from stunted growth, a nutrition expert has said, urging local government councils to prioritise funding for interventions targeting pregnant women and young children.
The expert, Mrs Ada Ezeogu, said the first 1,000 days of a child's life, from pregnancy to the second birthday, were critical to preventing malnutrition.
She spoke during a two-day training organised by the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, and the Cross River State Planning Commission for Local Government Nutrition Committees from nine councils under a project funded by Latter-day Saints Charities, LDSC. The event was held in Calabar.
Ezeogu said tackling malnutrition required adequate food, proper childcare practices and a healthy environment.
At the training, an independent consultant on Public Finance for Children, Dr David Okelue Ugwunta, urged councils to ensure that budgetary allocations for nutrition were released and spent on their intended purposes.
He said nutrition financing should go beyond budget approval to actual fund releases, implementation and accountability.
“A plan without a budget line is a wish. A budget line without a release is a promise. Only a release, spent and reported, is a service,” Ugwunta said.
He explained that councils could finance nutrition programmes through federal allocations, internally generated revenue, state transfers and development partners, but stressed the need for clearly defined budget lines to protect nutrition spending from competing demands.
Ugwunta said providing deworming drugs and iron and folic acid supplements for pregnant women during one round of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Week across the nine councils would cost about N114.8 million, while two rounds annually would require N229.7 million.
He urged the nutrition committees to engage council officials early in the budget process, prepare costed action plans and monitor expenditure to ensure that approved funds translated into services.
The UNICEF Nutrition Specialist at its Enugu Field Office, Dr Ngozi Onuora, said Cross River was among five states selected for the LDSC-funded project, with nine local government areas participating in the pilot phase.
She said the prevalence of stunting in the state declined from 23 per cent in 2018 to 21 per cent in 2024, while minimum dietary diversity among children increased from 23 per cent to 51 per cent.
However, Onuora said about one in five children remained stunted, while approximately 80 per cent of infants aged zero to six months were not exclusively breastfed.
She said UNICEF was targeting a reduction in stunting to below 10 per cent through improved breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices, alongside support for household and community gardening and small livestock production.
Onuora also urged the state to invest in the Child Nutrition Fund, through which UNICEF matches state contributions to support nutrition supplements for pregnant women and children, as well as therapeutic food for children with severe acute malnutrition.
Meanwhile, the Cross River State chairman of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, ALGON, Chief Chris Agbeh, pledged the councils' support for the programme.
Represented by the Secretary of Ogoja Local Government Council, Chief Alex Atem, Agbeh said the councils would incorporate nutrition into their development plans, establish dedicated budget lines, support counterpart funding and intensify awareness campaigns at the ward level.
The vice chairmen of the nine participating councils also agreed to engage members of the Joint Account Allocation Committee, JAAC, to improve monthly contributions towards nutrition programmes.
Participants were drawn from the health, agriculture, water, sanitation and hygiene, planning, finance and social mobilisation departments of the nine local government areas.
214,931 Cross River children suffer stunted growth — UNICEF consultant