UK spends £22m to tackle malnutrition in North-East
Emergency Digest – United Kingdom is to donate about £22 million to help tackle the problem of malnutrition in North-Eastern Nigeria, the United Nations Children Emergency Fund has revealed.
Speaking to journalists in Maiduguri on Wednesday, Sanjay Das, Nutrition Manager, UNICEF said the funding followed the success of initial fund of $10 million which was expended on the treatment of 233,000 malnourished children in the North-East between October 2018 to May 2019.
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He said the initial fund of $10 million was released by the United Kingdom through her Department for International Development (DFID), the department responsible for administering overseas aid. Das said the fund was spent on nutrition complements and drugs to tackle cases of malnutrition in the region.
Sanjay said that the DFID has released £22 million to comprehensively tackle the problem of malnutrition in the region for three years.
He said under the latest intervention, which spans April 2019 to March 2022, 87,000 persons are targeted.
He said not only malnourished children would be covered under the latest intervention, but their mothers and infrastructure would be put in place to put an end to malnutrition in the region.
He, however, lamented that the earlier intervention was faced with some challenges including insecurity which made project areas inaccessible.
He also noted that the medical team were not able to access some areas in Borno State during the rainy season due to flooding and because some parts of the state have a scattered population, thus making it difficult to bring them together to medical facilities.
