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'Malnutrition undermines economic growth'
Tuesday, 06 April 2010 00:02
By Abdoulie JohnGambia’s Minister of Tourism and Culture, Fatou Mass Jobe, has underscored the significance of nutrition to national development, describing it as pivotal to human capital, social and economic development.
In a statement delivered on behalf, Gambian Vice-President Isatou Njie-Saidy, Fatou Mass Jobe noted the existence of ample evidence showing a two-way relationship between nutrition and national development.
‘‘Malnutrition undermines economic growth and consequently brings about poverty,” she told participants at the final Validation Workshop on the Draft National Nutrition Policy (2010-2020), which is being held at the Kairaba Beach Hotel in Kololi.
Organized by the National Nutrition Agency (NaNa), the workshop, which will last from April 6-7, seeks to demonstrate Gambia Government’s commitment to place nutrition high on the national development agenda as under-nutrition continues to serve as a major public health problem exacerbated by poverty, food deficiency, rural-urban migration, environmental degradation, and a horde of other factors.
“Investing in nutrition is judicious and beneficial in that it yields very high returns such as improved physical work capacity, cognitive development, school performance, good health, reduced morbidity and mortality which in turn lead to increased productivity, economic development and poverty reduction,’’ Minister Jobe said. ‘‘It is now quite apparent that nutrition is a crucial component of any development plan and should be made central to development so that a wide range of economic and social improvements that depend on it can be achieved.”
To this effect, the minister recalled, the Government of the Gambia approved in 2000, through the National Assembly, the first Nutrition Policy 2000-2004. But she said that when its lifespan elapsed, it increasingly appeared to various stakeholders that there was a need to come up with a revised Nutrition Policy.
“The revised Nutrition Policy includes emerging issues and those that were not adequately addressed in the first policy such as Nutrition and HIV/AIDS, Nutrition in schools and Emergency situations, Nutrition in relation to the Food Control System, Resource Mobilization and Research in Nutrition.”
For Mrs. Meritxell Relano Arana, Unicef Deputy Country Representative, despite the fact that the situation of malnutrition is not as serious as is in most countries within the sub-region, it is still, she noted, an issue that merits collective urgent attention, so as to respond efficiently to the MDGs and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“The development of this draft to guide and inform policy interventions in the nutrition sector is therefore timely and I would want to commend the government of the Gambia for their vision and leadership on this matter,” she stated.
She went further to indicate that the eight priority areas mentioned in the draft policy align well with the Unicef Child Survival and Development Strategy.
She said: “By ensuring that these issues are addressed through standardized policy and strategy reaching down to communities and families, we can make considerable progress towards improving the health of children and mothers.”
But she was quick to emphasize that policies are only good if they can be fully implemented, and that their implementation will require resources. She therefore sought to encourage the Gambia’s National Nutrition Agency (NaNa) to come up with a fully cost nutrition investment plan to facilitate resource mobilization in a bid to implementing the policy.
‘‘The National Nutrition Agency can count on Unicef for the required resources and support to develop this nutrition investment plan,” Mrs. Meritxell Relano Arana assured.
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