The call was made by the Head of Health and Nutrition Save the Children, Ms violet Birungi in an interview at Parliament during the Parliament Nutrition week.
“Good nutrition saves children’s lives and gives them the chance to thrive. It is critical for children to grow, develop physically and mentally, stay healthy and learn, and for their wellbeing throughout their lives,” said Birungi.
She said that with only seven years left to meet the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) 2 on Zero Hunger and combating malnutrition, the country is grappling with Climate Change impacts, high levels of consumption of unhealthy diets. The most vulnerable children are set to fall even further behind in terms of growth and development milestones. Unless we take immediate action, we will see many more children die from preventable causes and children and adults in the most vulnerable communities will face a food and nutrition emergency.
Birungi commended the government for all the initiatives put forward to ensure access to adequate and safe food for all through the enactments of different legal frameworks and various government programs, plans, strategies, models at national levels aimed at increasing production, productivity, value addition and marketing.
We also commend the government for the commitments undertaken at the regional and international levels, for example by implementing the SDGs goals, the Uganda nutrition Action Plan and being a signatory to the Malabo Declaration of June 2014 which aims at reducing childhood malnutrition (under five stunting to 10 percent and wasting to 5 percent) by 2025.
The escalating change in Uganda’s climate witnessed by prolonged droughts, irregular rainfall patterns, floods is undoubtedly threatening agriculture, the country’s core food security and affecting the nutrition and wellbeing of children and their families. Moreover, Uganda’s population is rapidly increasing now at 45 m people (UBOS,2020) half of these being children below 18 years. This trend indicates a heavy dependence on households. We cannot let this happen. We must act now to both save children’s lives today and to safeguard their future from the scars of malnutrition.
The above issues are leading to significant disruption in families and have had myriad effects on children’s wellbeing; impacting their education, health and nutrition. We must focus on addressing the underlying causes of malnutrition in this country if we are to fulfill governments commitment to our vision 2024 and global goals specially SGD 2.
Parliamentary Health Committee Chairperson, Dr Charles Ayume who represented the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, said there is need for legislation to guide food and nutrition in the country.
The event was organized by the Uganda Parliamentary Alliance on Food and Nutrition in partnership with Save the Children Uganda, Civil Society Alliance for nutrition Uganda, Food Agricultural Organization.
More partners appealed to government to increase funding towards nutrition and food security.
Source: PML Daily
