FCT unveils new policy on food, nutrition

By Stanley Onyekwere

TheFCT Administration has disclosed the adoption of a new policy on food and nutrition, which would serve as guiding document for food and nutrition activities in the Territory.

It was gathered that the document, which is a product of multi sectorial technical working group which drew members from the academia, NonGovernmental Organisations (NGOs) education, information, agriculture, education and in collaboration with UNICEF was a response from the Federal Ministry of Finance, budget and National Planning for list of priority nutrition interventions at sub national level drawn from state strategic plan of action for food and nutrition.

The Acting Executive Secretary of the FCT Primary Health Care Board

Dr. Isa Vatsa, while declaring the workshop open, noted that lack of information has impaired adequate nutrition in the FCT, as nutrition challenges in the FCT was not due to lack of food but due to ignorance on the quality and types of food required.

Vatsa had charged participants to contribute positively towards producing a workable nutrition document for the FCT.

On his part, the facilitator of the workshop Professor Kola Mathew Anigo of the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria stressed the importance of nutrition towards the success of all sustainable development goals.

Anigo who presented an overview of National policy on food and nutrition noted that Nigeria is a country blessed with abundant natural and human resources but regretted that poverty has remained pervasive in the country.

He also pointed out that Nigeria has the highest number of children and under 5 who are stunted in the sub Saharan Africa and very high level of wasting adding that the country requires a coordinated multi sectorial approaches and public, private civil society partnership intervention.

He noted that Nigeria National policy on food and nutrition (NPFN) was adopted in April 2016 as a response to the urgent need to scale up high impact and cost effective intervention.

A glimpse into policy document shows that the current situation of food and nutrition in the Federal Capital Territory is captured under subheadings like poverty situation in the Territory, food, water and sanitation, nutrition and health, school based feeding programme, nutrition in emergencies, nutrition and SDGs, monitoring and evaluation and research as well as planning budget and finance.

It also shows that despite the abundance of fertile land mass, human and natural resources in the FCT, poverty level is still at an unacceptable level of 38.7%, and majority of the affected population is found in rural areas is found in rural areas which may be due to the influx of migrants from other states as a result of insecurity and desire for greener pastures, lack of education , social inequality , high inflation rate as reflected in high consumer price index and loss of jobs and livelihood activities due to natural hazards such as floods and fire outbreaks.

On food security, FCT is considered food insecure due to the fact that food consumption score which is a composite score based on the dietary diversity, food frequency and the relative nutritional importance of different groups is within the boarder line of 24.

This situation thus suggests that an average FCT resident does not consume adequate combination of the required food group, which is a concern to nutrition stakeholders in the Territory especially the Committee on food and nutrition.

The FCT committee on food and nutrition is domiciled in the Economic planning, Revenue generation and public private partnership Secretariat.

The Secretary of the committee and FCT nutrition coordinator, Mrs. Clementina