Health
THE Kano State Ministry of Planning and Budget, in collaboration with UNICEF Kano Field Office, has convened the State Committee on Food and Nutrition SCFN review meeting in Kaduna.
Supported by the Government of the United States U.S, the stakeholders deliberated on strategies for tackling malnutrition and improving food security through coordinated multisectoral interventions.
The two-day meeting, themed “Strengthening Multisectoral Action for Improved Nutrition and Food Security in Kano State,” brought together government officials, lawmakers, development partners, civil society groups and media representatives.
At the closing of the meeting on Wednesday in Kaduna, the Kano State Commissioner of Health, Dr Abubakar Yusuf, said malnutrition remained deeply linked to poverty and food insecurity.
Yusuf, represented by the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Aminu Bashir, said the ministry could not tackle malnutrition alone because the root causes were tied to poverty, poor education, inadequate food systems and low agricultural productivity.
He noted that more than 63 per cent of Nigerians lived below the poverty line, making proper feeding difficult for many families and worsening malnutrition among mothers and children.
According to him, Kano records over 51 per cent stunting among children, warning that the state’s future was at risk if urgent interventions were not implemented.
He said malnutrition cases usually declined during harvest periods when food was available, but increased during rainy seasons when food shortages intensified in rural communities.
Yusuf stressed the need for ministries, lawmakers, NGOs, media and development partners to work together to address nutrition challenges through coordinated policies and sustainable interventions.
He urged the Ministry of Agriculture to expand irrigation farming, noting that Kano possessed the largest number of earth dams in Nigeria which could support year-round food production.
The commissioner also raised concerns over diversion of nutrition aid and public funds, calling for societal reorientation and stronger moral accountability among citizens and officials.
The acting Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Planning and Budget who is the Chairman of the State Committee on Food and Nutrition, said the meeting identified priority intervention areas for improved nutrition delivery.
He said stakeholders agreed to establish a nutrition aid diversion committee, track nutrition budget lines across ministries and coordinate implementation of nutrition programmes statewide.
According to him, the Kano government had consistently prioritised healthcare funding and surpassed the Abuja Declaration benchmark of allocating 15 per cent of its budget to health.
Dr Karanveer Singh, Nutrition Manager at the UNICEF Field Office in Kano, said the U.S. government funded UNICEF to improve nutrition services for pregnant women and children under two years.
Singh said Kano was among eight beneficiary states under the programme targeting nutritional support during the critical first 1,000 days of life.
He described the nutrition situation in Kano as alarming, revealing that more than half of children under five were chronically malnourished and stunted.
Singh stressed that nutrition challenges required collaboration among sectors including health, agriculture, education, social protection, water and sanitation to achieve meaningful progress.
Halima Ishaq of the Kano State Ministry of Information and Internal Affairs said her ministry would intensify public enlightenment and behavioural change campaigns on nutrition issues.
She advised pregnant women to attend antenatal and postnatal healthcare services regularly to receive proper nutrition guidance for themselves and their children.
Abdulhamid Minjibir, Chairman of the Kano State House of Assembly Committee on Appropriation, pledged legislative support for increased nutrition funding in the state’s future budgets.
Minjibir assured stakeholders that the assembly would work towards incorporating nutrition allocations into appropriation plans to strengthen interventions across Kano State.NAN
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MAY. 20, 2026
Tags: Abdulhamid Minjibir Abubakar Yusuf Karanveer Singh UNICEF