No fewer than 2.5 million Nigerian children under the age of 5 years are suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM).
This disclosure was made by the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba, at flag-off of the 2020 Nigeria nutrition week in Abuja on Monday.
This figure places Nigeria as the country with the second highest number of stunted children in the world.
He stated that this challenge must be addressed through the implementation of innovative policies and strategies that are appropriately funded, data-driven, sustainable and optimized in terms of transparency and accountability for the efforts to yield the desired results.
In addition, government he said must also continue to work collaboratively across all levels of governments and hand-in-hand with the private sector and development partners in this regard.
He lamented that Nigerias food and nutrition situation and the attendant poor global image in terms of economic and development milestones are major concerns to the federal government.
This development he said has forced government to create a platform to mobilize nutrition stakeholders towards addressing the challenge of malnutrition, which has been termed the silent killer
The platform is a week-long Nutrition Campaign Week.
