Earlier today, I formally unveiled the national guideline on Women and Girls’ Empowerment for Optimal Nutrition at the Abuja Continental Hotel, under our collective desire to scale up consciousness on optimal nutrition for our Women and Girls.
Optimal nutrition is not just a health imperative but a basic human right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which Nigeria is a signatory. The consequences of malnutrition, including cognitive impairment, reduced productivity, and chronic illness, can result in significant GDP losses of 2.3% annually translating into substantial economic burdens.
Its worrisome to note that most women suffer during pregnancy due to poor diets lacking in key nutrients like iodine, folate, calcium, and zinc, which can cause anemia, bleeding and death in mothers, stillbirth, low birth weight, and developmental delays in children.
For us in the Ministry, bolder steps have been taken by involving our Women in mechanized farming and other agricultural production such as Rice, Cassava, Corn, Potatoes, Livestock, etc. We have equally distributed farming equipment to 15 states in the first phase. We will start the second phase very soon as part of measures to sustainably empower our Women to veer into meaningful ventures that will enhance their socio-economic status.
I wish to commend our partners on this initiative including the Civil Society-Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria, Family Health International Solutions, FHI 360 Alive and Thrive, and our coalition partners but we solicit for other partners and donor agencies to join this collaboration as channeled towards optimal nutrition for Women and Girls in Nigeria
