Close to a billion people – one-eighth of the world’s population – still live in hunger. Each year 2 million children die through malnutrition—Jonathan Sacks.
It is quite disheartening that hunger and malnutrition are global problems which are prevalent in developing countries — of which Nigeria belongs.
“Stomach infrastructure” is still trending and has successfully found its way into Nigerians’ vocabularies. “Stomach infrastructure” could be explained as attending to the people’s immediate needs especially by providing food relief to the poor. Politicians are banking on the exploitation of the vulnerable to garner votes during elections. Nigerians can vividly recall how “stomach infrastructure” played out in the 2014 Ekiti State gubernatorial election.
Of recent, it becomes apparent that many Nigerians can hardly meet up with the convention of “three square meals” a day. This can be attributed to the unbearable cost of commodities in the market — further compounded by the staggering backlog of salaries owed to workers by the State governments and delays in paying pensions to those that have served the nation. As such, civil servants, pensioners and most especially, children are the worst hit. That’s not to rule out the fact that some youths are also badly affected.
“Hunger is the world’s number one health risk.It kills more people every year than AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis combined”, says Happy World Meal Gate. This is to show how deadly hunger is. And without an iota of doubt, it is evident that Nigeria is lagging behind in eradicating hunger and malnutrition.
The sheer non-payment of salaries has financially incapacitated and reduced the purchasing power of workers and pensioners thereby forcing many who were hitherto categorized as middle class into poverty.
In a staggering revelation, “One third of children under 5 are stunted. That’s twice the rate of Thailand and three times that of Tunisia. Also, a child in the remote northwestern region of Nigeria – where stunting rates are around 55 percent – is four times more likely to experience malnutrition than a child in the south”, says World Food Programme (WFP).
Fulani herdsmen clashes, Boko Haram insurgencies and climate change ripple effects are other underlying factors threatening food security in Nigeria — thereby, making the victims vulnerable to shortage of food, lack of water and poor health services. Farming which is the major source of sustenance in the North–east and Middle–belt has suffered untoward setbacks – owing to terrorism and clashes. If this continues unabated, suffice it to say that the conjoined forces of these factors are liable to keep frustrating the attainment of hunger eradication by 2030 in Nigeria.
Stunted growth, underweight, low IQ, low immune system culminating vulnerability to diseases and infant mortality are the order of the day. The resultant effects of the prevalent hunger and malnutrition in children are obvious and could be traced to the financial constraints being experienced by the parents.
According to Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of The United Nations, the idea behind (Zero Hunger); Sustainable Development Goals 2 stemmed from apprehension on how to sufficiently meet the nutritional needs of the projected population of about 10 billion by 2050 despite the fact that about 815 Million currently go hungry.
Poverty, hunger and malnutrition are interwoven— with multifaceted root causes. It is paramount to tackle poverty, hunger and malnutrition. These would prepare the way for tackling malnutrition in early childhood.
Donations are widely perceived to only cater for the immediate needs and not seen as an effective long-term solution in tackling hunger. Tere is an urgent need to focus on the self-sufficiency of the affected families, most especially – the women.
It is the right of every man, woman and child to enjoy unrestricted access and right to adequate food. Therefore, the foundational basis of the country’s SDGs policies and implementation should be erected on that basis.