NESG, Group Partner To Tackle Food Insecurity, Say 40m At Risk

The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has said, no fewer than 40million Nigerians are battling food insecurity in the country.

To this end, the group, together with the National Economic Summit Group(NESG) and E-Health Africa through third-party campaign, is set to drive a collaborative campaign aimed at joining efforts with health advocates, MDAs, non-state actors and organised private sectors on the need to amplify food fortification campaign to improve workforce nutrition in Nigeria.

The Multisectoral group explained the need to drive the implementation of food fortification and workforce nutrition in Nigeria in a move to build stronger health systems that will respond to local needs and provide underserved communities with right tools to live healthier lives.

This is even as CISLAC joined collaborative efforts with relevant stakeholders to address the gaps and weak fundamental aspects of nutrition among employees and supply chain workers.

The food fortification campaign, according to the group, is geared towards ensuring that the active workforce and general working population have access to quality food while stressing that, the general workforce population spends half of the day at their workplace.

CISLAC also urged organised private sector to ensure adequate nutrition for staffs and employees while stressing that this would reduce lost work hours and maximise full potential at workplace.

Speaking earlier during a campaign launch and media roundtable with CSOs and Media training on food fortification with the theme; “Fortifying Nigeria’s Future: CSO and Media Training on Food Fortification and Workforce Nutrition in Nigeria.” Senior Finance officer, CISLAC, Murtala Mohammed said, the campaign and three days capacity building programmes would address workforce nutrition and nutrients deficiency amongst active workforce.

He said: “millions of Nigerians are undernourished, and many more are overweight or obese.

He added that, this has a devastating impact on health, productivity, and economic development. According to the National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) 2022, 44.1 per cent of children under the age of five in Nigeria are stunted, meaning they are too short for their age.

“This is a decrease from 46.0 per cent in 2018, but it is still a high number. The NDHS also found that 20.3 per cent of children under the age of five in Nigeria are wasted, meaning they are too thin for their height.

“Food fortification is a proven way to improve nutrition and health. It is a simple, cost-effective intervention that can be used to add essential nutrients to foods that are commonly consumed by large populations.” he stated

While urging companies, food producers and industries to help promote food fortification and workforce nutrition in Nigeria, he charged organisations across the country to take the issues of workforce nutrition more seriously as to improve the productivity of their employees by implementing the following measures.

CISLAC, NESG and E-Health Africa charged government and non-state actors to drive food regulation in large scale proportion by improving legislative oversights on food fortification and workforce nutrition at the National assembly to ensuring that the food supply chain is fortified.

Also speaking, Dr. Patricia Ukaegbu of the Dept of Human Nutrition and Diatetics, Michael Okpara University said, a well nourished population will fight infection adding that a malnourished population will affect labour productivity in critical sectors of the economy.

According to Ukaegbu, nutrition is a basic human right and we must understand the essentials that will develop humans and transcend economy development.

She outlined consequences of malnutrition such as maternal death, stunted growth, micro-nutrients deficiency and reduced mental capacity.

On her part, Virtual presenter, Dr. Omolola Okunola opined that food security is affecting healthy nutrition in the country noting that there’s a linkage between food security and nutrition.

She charged industries, companies and supply chain workers to take conformity of food compliance serious while stating the changing consumer patterns of food regulation and consumption sustainability needs to be properly addressed to achieve full potential in the workforce.