The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has stressed that, to reduce child wasting and stunting, there is a need to ensure that children are born with a healthy weight, benefit from nutritious and safe diets, nutritional supplements, and positive feeding and care practices, and have access to essential nutrition, health, water, and sanitation services.
This was contained in a presentation by UNICEF Nutrition Specialist with the Bauchi Field Office, Philomena Irene, at a 2-day media dialogue on age-appropriate complementary feeding for infants and young children held in Gombe.
She also stressed that there must be proper investment in improving women’s and girls’ conditions and providing them with equitable opportunities.
According to her, the programming is grounded in a systems-strengthening approach to improve nutrition outcomes for children, adolescents and women.
The approach activates 5 key systems that have the potential to deliver critical interventions at scale and have an impact on nutrition programmes.
The 5 Key Systems are Food, Health, Water, Education, and a Safer Environment, stressing that with conflicts, the socioeconomic crisis, and the impact of climate change, the Sahel is a region of high vulnerability where food insecurity is a chronic issue.
Also, COVID-19, the negative impacts of the war in Ukraine, and protracted conflicts in the region make everything worse, with malnutrition hotspot areas growing in size and intensity.
While treatment remains imperative to save the lives of children most severely affected, there must be a shift in the paradigm and a focus on scaling interventions to prevent malnutrition.
According to Marie-Pierre Poirier, UNICEF Regional Director, West and Central Africa, a fair chance at life begins with good nutrition, because if a child does not receive optimal nutrition within their first 1000 days, from conception to 23 months, their body and brain will fail to develop properly.
Also, if a child doesn’t have proper access to basic water and sanitation services as well as health services, they won’t be able to thrive.
“We need to adapt and re-imagine our existing nutrition programmes to make sure that every mother and child has access to healthy diets and essential services now and in the future,” She said.
According to her, “To achieve this, we need sustainable commitments and resources to scale up efforts and implement what we know works for the prevention, early detection, and treatment of undernutrition.”
The Sahel region is full of opportunities, and the population has strong resilience but needs support.
The UNICEF Nutrition Specialist added, “Only by working together and making the right investments can we break the intergenerational cycle of malnutrition and ensure that Sahelian children have the chance to survive now and thrive in the future.”
“It’sn’t only about fighting undernourishment. It requires a wide-ranging approach,” says Souley Adamu.
UNICEF Nutrition Specialist in Niger
NICEF’s Nutrition Strategy 2020–2030 offers a comprehensive and purposeful framework to guide our collective efforts over the next decade.
Guided by key strategies such as 1st Food and No Time to Waste, our approach is to scale up prevention, early detection, and treatment of stunting and wasting for the most vulnerable children: the youngest of the young, the poorest of the poor, and those left behind by humanitarian crises.”
UNICEF stressed,” We must act now to help the Sahel recover. We each have a role to play. This is how taking action now can lead to Nutrition.”
According to UNICEF, “Now in the Sahel: Investing in maternal, adolescent, and child nutrition by supporting and promoting breastfeeding, access to essential services, and healthy diets to prevent malnutrition.”
Also Supporting innovative approaches and scaling-up of services for the early detection and treatment of infants and young children. Expanding social protection services to facilitate access to nutritious diets and essential services for the most vulnerable.
Others are Investing in the nutrition knowledge and skills of primary healthcare workers, who are the front line between the health system, children, and families. Services to prevent malnutrition must be delivered during prenatal and postnatal health care contacts.
Providing safe and palatable drinking water, along with safe sanitation and hygiene services, Empowering communities and strengthening their
engagement to build resilience.
UNICEF added that breastfeeding promotes early initiation of breastfeeding in primary health care, exclusive breastfeeding until 6 months, and then continued breastfeeding for up to two years.
It also supports governments with a legal framework and on-the-ground interventions to ban inappropriate promotion and distribution of breastmilk substitutes and to support healthy food production.
Furthermore, Complementary food and feeding (6–23 months) support families with information and solutions for healthy and safe diets for their young children and Promote access to affordable, nutritious complementary foods produced and transformed locally by mobilising social small and medium enterprises
(SMEs) and young entrepreneurs.
It ensures the continuity of essential nutrition services for young children through food, health, social protection, food and water, and sanitation systems. Support governments with a legal framework and on-the-ground interventions to support healthy food production.
Micronutrient Supplementation adapts delivery platforms for vitamin A supplementation, including via routine health system contacts and child health days.
Healthy food environments Employ multi-sectoral efforts such as social protection, education and water and sanitation to ensure continued local availability and affordability of healthy foods, including local solutions and promotion of the production of local complementary foods, working with social small and medium
enterprises (SME).
Investing in nutrition well-being and closing the funding gaps will enable UNICEF and partners to strengthen priority systems to deliver for children.
UNICEF stresses that Early detection and treatment of life-threatening malnutrition in early childhood and early detection of wasting; intensify efforts to strengthen the capacity of mothers, carers, and community actors to detect and monitor their children’s nutritional status.
Empowering mothers is key to tackling undernutrition, while treatment of child wasting requires initiating or intensifying the decentralisation of treatment for uncomplicated wasting by shifting to community-based treatment whenever possible and preventing disruptions in key commodities.
Simplified combined protocol (MUAC/oedema as the only criteria for admissions and discharge; expanded admissions criteria; use of RUTF to treat both MAM and SAM; reduced dosage of RUTF) results in recovery rates as good as those of standard protocol.
Thanks to simplified approaches, the most vulnerable children living in the most remote and inaccessible areas
can access treatment.
Decentralisation also reinforces community resilience, putting mothers, carers, and community workers at the forefront of curbing malnutrition issues.
ALSO READ THESE TOP STORIES FROM NEWSNGR.COM.NG