Governor Sule Approves N500m Counterpart Fund To Tackle Child Malnutrition In Nasarawa

Rabiu Omaku

Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has approved the sum of 500 million Naira as counterpart matching fund to support the fight against child malnutrition in the state.

Governor Sule announced this at the Government House on Monday when he received a delegation from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) led by the Chief of Field Office, Kaduna, Dr Gerida Birukila, who was on an advocacy visit to the State tate.

The Governor said the fund, expected to be released by the end of next month, would be matched with a similar amount by UNICEF to procure commodities for the treatment of severely malnourished children across the State.

“I cannot promise you a billion immediately, but at the end of next month, we will give 500 million. That’s what we can do in order to support the programme,” the Governor said.

He commended UNICEF for its continued partnership with the State Government in the area of child healthcare and nutrition, noting that the agency had taken over several responsibilities that the State used to handle on its own.

“I thank you for all the other little things that we used to do, which today you have taken over, and for that reason, we are not seeing some of those requests to carry out one or the other,” he said.

The Governor restated his administration’s policy granting nursing mothers in the State ‘s employment a six-month maternity leave to allow for exclusive breastfeeding, describing it as a deliberate intervention informed by the proven health benefits of breastfeeding for child development.

“We took the aspect of the six months vacation for mothers to breastfeed their children seriously, and I did that really from experience on my own part,” he said, adding that working mothers under the policy continue to receive their full pay during the period.

Governor Sule thanked the State Commissioner for Health and officials of the Nasarawa State Primary Healthcare Development Agency for their support to the partnership with UNICEF.

Earlier, Dr Birukila commended Nasarawa State for emerging winner of a leadership challenge that earned the state 500,000 US dollars, an award she said followed an independent assessment of the State ‘s performance in child health interventions.

She disclosed that during the last polio vaccination campaign, Nasarawa State went beyond routine immunisation to provide free healthcare services and malnutrition screening in selected Local Government Areas, an exercise that identified about 103 severely malnourished children within five days.

The UNICEF official noted that Nasarawa State was the only State to commit new counterpart funding for child nutrition this year, after the Governor had earlier approved 125 million Naira towards the State ‘s child nutrition fund.

She said treating each severely malnourished child costs about 60 US dollars, and that an estimated 25,000 children in the state require similar treatment.

Dr Birukila described Nasarawa State’s six-month paid maternity leave policy as a key achievement worth emulating, noting that exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months remains one of the most effective ways of preventing malnutrition in children.

She appealed to the State Government to sustain and increase its funding commitment to child nutrition programmes, stressing that prevention of malnutrition remains far cheaper than treatment.