Shettima Demands Ring-fenced Funding For Nutrition Programmes

The National Council on Nutrition (NCN), chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima, has established a Nutrition Financing Subcommittee to develop a funding structure for Nigeria’s nutrition interventions.

This is in line with the Vice President’s call to ring-fence nutrition financing to bridge the gap between promises made and lives changed, and to pursue the National Nutrition Bill with urgency.

The committee, constituted during a virtual meeting of the NCN on Thursday, is expected to prepare a financing roadmap within 30 days and present it to the National Council on Nutrition (NCN) and the National Economic Council (NEC) for review and final adoption.

Members of the sub-committee chaired by the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, include the Ministers of Education, Water Resources, Women Affairs, and Science and Technology, as well as the Deputy Chief of Staff to the President and the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Health, while the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning will serve as the Secretariat.

Chairman of the Council, Vice President Shettima, also directed the involvement of development partners and private investors in the committee, including the Aliko Dangote Foundation.

Disclosing the outcome of the meeting, VP Shettima, in a statement by his spokesman,said, “Council recognises the importance of establishing a strong legal and institutional framework to sustain coordination, financing, and accountability across sectors. Council therefore resolves that the National Nutrition Bill should be pursued with urgency.

“The Ad-hoc Technical Committee will continue its work and will be co-chaired by the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, reflecting the central role of both financing and food systems in improving nutrition outcomes.”

The NCN, according to the VP, also resolved that “budget allocations must be matched with timely releases and effective utilization,” even as “Ministries, Departments, and Agencies must ensure that approved funds for nutrition-related programmes are released and implemented accordingly.

Acknowledging the strategic importance of the Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) 2.0 Project in addressing urgent service delivery gaps in high-burden states, Senator Shettima, on behalf of the Council, encouraged state governors “to fast-track the necessary actions at the state level to ensure timely implementation and effective utilization of the available resources.

“If our efforts are to succeed, they must not stop at the federal level. Nutrition outcomes are ultimately determined within households and communities. This requires stronger subnational ownership and deeper grassroots engagement, ensuring that states, local governments, community leaders, and frontline workers play their full role in implementation,” he added.

The NCN further resolved that women must remain at the center of these efforts since they are the backbone of household nutrition, childcare, and food systems, just as the Vice President observed that “their voices, leadership, and participation must be fully integrated into planning, decision-making, and programme delivery.

“Our collective responsibility is to ensure that the policies and commitments we make here translate into real improvements in homes and communities across all 774 Local Government Areas of Nigeria,” he noted.

Senator Shettima noted that while the issue was no longer about whether nutrition mattered, “the central reform issue before us is financing, not as theory, but as execution.”

He said there must be clarity on how funds are budgeted, released, ring-fenced, and tracked, as well as how every naira is accounted for across ministries, departments, agencies, and states.

“Budgeting without release is not financing. Allocation without predictability is not reform. Nutrition must be protected. Every MDA must now account not just for figures on paper but for measurable changes in the lives of Nigerians,” he stated.

VP Shettima acknowledged that the burden of dismantling the maladies hindering Nigeria’s quest for a well-nourished nation is on the Council.

Demanding ring-fencing nutrition financing, the Vice President said, “We must strengthen budget tagging, tracking, and reforms to the chart of accounts so Nigerians can see real outcomes. Without ring-fencing nutrition financing, the gap between promises made and lives changed will continue to widen.”

On the issue of nutrition legislation, the VP asked ministers who were formerly legislators to mobilize their counterparts to ensure that the bill sees the light of day.

Earlier, the Council received update reports on the Food and Nutrition Security Preparedness Plan, Nutrition 774 Implementation Realities, as well as the Nutrition Bill.

In separate remarks, State governments represented by the Governor of Kwara State, Alhaji Abdulrahman AbdulRazaq; the Chairman of the Board of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria (NSN), Muhammad Sanusi II, and the representatives of development partners including the Aliko Dangote Foundation and the UNICEF, among others, reiterated their commitment and support for all nutrition-focused projects at all levels in the country.

Council also received an update report on the national nutrition budgeting outlook which highlighted progress made and funding gaps across MDAs and subnational levels, identifying key priority areas, including sustained exploration of reform initiatives across all levels of government, consolidation of the national scale up on nutrition as enshrined in the ANRiN 2.0 programme, and regular reporting of progress made across all interventions and programmes to the National Council on Nutrition for sustained heightened oversight, among others.

The Council was informed that the State Council on Nutrition (SCN) has been inaugurated in nine states, namely Abia, Adamawa, Borno, Cross River, Jigawa, Plateau, Rivers, Yobe, and Zamfara, with more underway.

The Council was urged to consider mandating the development of inter-ministerial priorities with key performance targets by all nutrition-relevant ministries, aligned with N774, with the convergence of nutrition-smart interventions at the household level.

For his part, the Minister of Education, Dr. Morufu Tunji Alausa, recommended the creation of a sustainable funding structure to support the Federal Government’s nutrition drive.