Senior Program Officer, MacArthur Foundation Africa Office, Dr Amina Salihu, says lack of quality and regular nutrition is largely responsible for deaths of infants and children in Nigeria.
Salihu, an international consultant and women’s rights activist, spoke on Friday at the maiden edition of the PUNCH Digital Town Hall with the theme ‘Strengthening the Nigerian Maternal and Child Health through Clinical and Community-based Interventions’.
Salihu said due to the increasing poverty rate in the country, some parents could no longer afford to feed their young ones with the basic nutrition to shape their growth and development.
She lamented that some children get to feed only when they go to school, noting that the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme of the Federal Government must not die.
“The school feeding programme must not die because some children get their only meal in a day when they go school,” she stated.
According to the Federal Government, the school feeding aims to improve the health and educational outcomes of public primary school pupils. It said over 300 million meals have been served to more than 7.5 million pupils in 46,000 Public Primary Schools in over 30 states since 2016.
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Salihu further stressed that there is an intersection between education and the empowerment of women and girls, while calling for extant policies to achieving positive health outcomes for expectant mothers in the country.
The conversation which was moderated by communications strategist, Mr Chido Nwakanma, also featured other speakers including journalist, policy and development expert, Rotimi Sankore; amongst others.
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