From Bola Ogunlayi, Ibadan.
Project Director and Team Leader, Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN), Oyo State, Bulus Sani Shabanda, has stated that Oyo state is one of the states with the highest malnutrition in the Southwestern geo-political zone and across the country.
The State has therefore qualified as beneficiary of a world Bank project.
Shabanda disclosed that the ANRiN project’s overall programme objective is to increase access to and utilisation of a community-based Basic Package of Nutrition Service (BPNS) in the defined geography of ANRiN states.
This was in accordance to established and agreed targets to reduce malnutrition by the World Bank .
Speaking on the sidelines of a stakeholder engagement meeting held at Kakanfo Inn, Ibadan, the Oyo state capital, Shabanda noted that, “The rate of malnutrition in Oyo state is significantly high and the rate of malnutrition is actually unevenly distributed across the country.
“However, in the Southwest part of the country, Oyo State has one of the highest statistics. And that is one of the reasons the World Bank chose Oyo State as one of the states to implement this project in order to address issues of malnutrition which is leading to under-5 mortality, pregnant women dying and all that.
“The project come to address these underlying issues, so across Nigeria, I can tell you we have a high rate of malnutrition. We have a lot of interventions that are going on to reduce the malnutrition rate in the country.
“This project specifically comes to address the high rate of malnutrition we have in Oyo state as one of the highest states and of course we are seeing the impact already.”
He added that the project is being implemented across 12 states across the country.
The other affected states which he didn’t listed are the highest contributors to malnutrition in Nigeria.
