By Oboh Linus, Lafia
The Civil Society Scaling-Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN) has advocated for increased nutrition funding and timely release of budgetary allocation for nutrition to tackle malnutrition in Nasarawa State.
Hope Ikani, CS-SUNN Programme Officer, made the call during the Two-Day Stakeholders’ training on the use of the National Nutrition Budget Tracking System (NNBTS) in Lafia, the Nasarawa State Capital.
She noted that despite Nasarawa State’s improvement in nutrition financing, budget performances have remained inconsistent over the years.
“Based on the statistics that were shown yesterday, the trend analysis from 2014 to 2025, you can see that the nutrition performance and the budget performance of Nasarawa state have been fluctuating.
“For instance, the money that was released last year, over one billion naira for nutrition intervention, if you compare it to the money that was released in 2017 or 2018, you can see that it’s almost the same thing
“So, inflation has a huge impact on the budget, and that’s why we are advocating for increasing funding for nutrition in Nasarawa state so that we don’t continue to see fluctuations in budget performance,” she stated.
Speaking on the training, the Programme Manager said it aims at equipping stakeholders with skills to monitor and track nutrition-related budget performance across MDAs and the state in general.
She noted that the NNBTS replaces the old pen-and-paper method and allows stakeholders to track what was approved, released, and utilised for nutrition across line MDAs.
“This week in Lafia, we are training the state, both the CSOs and the MDAs, on how to use the new digitised budget tracking system.
“The budget tracking system is something that has always been in existence, where we track the budget performance of nutrition line MDAs.
“We track what was approved for nutrition, what was released, and what was utilised so that we can use the trend to advocate for more funding for nutrition,” she said.
Also speaking, Jonah Aboki, Nasarawa state CS-SUNN Coordinator, said the training also targets finance officers and nutrition focal persons in MDAs to improve budgeting and tracking skills.
Aboki, while expressing satisfaction with the increased budgetary allocation to nutrition in Nasarawa state, said the release of funds to line ministries, departments and agencies has been the biggest obstacle that slows down implementation.
He urged the participants to leverage the training to prepare adequate budgeting on nutrition for their MDAs and intensify tracking so that effective activities could be carried out to reduce the level of malnutrition in the state.
On his part, Mr Mohammed Sabo Mohammed, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Budget and Planning said the state Government under the leadership of Gov. Abdullahi Sule was committed to transparency, accountability and results.
Mohammed, represented by the director of Planning and Research, Mr Abdul Osama, restated the government’s commitment to the timely release of funds for nutrition and other priority sectors for effective utilisation.
