FG inaugurates committee on funding structure nutrition interventions

…As shettima seeks urgent action on National Nutrition Bill

The federal government on Thursday, said it has set up a Nutrition Financing Subcommittee to develop a funding structure to finance Nigeria’s nutrition interventions.

Vice President Kashim Shettima announced this at the meeting of the National Council on Nutrition (NCN) chaired by him

The Vice President also used the opportunity to call for ring-fencing nutrition financing in order to bridge the gap between promises made and lives changed, saying the National Nutrition Bill should be pursued with urgency.

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Stanley Nkwocha, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Communications, office of the Vice President, I n a statement, said the committee constituted at the Thursday meeting, held virtually, is expected to come up with a financing roadmap within 30 days and present the document to the Council 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, Muhammad 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.

Shettima said, “Council recognizes 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, 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.

He 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.

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.

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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, Morufu Alausa, recommended the creation of a sustainable funding structure to support the Federal Government’s nutrition drive.