NCN Sets 30-Day Plan to Build Nutrition Funding Framework

The National Council on Nutrition (NCN), chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima, has created a Nutrition Financing Subcommittee to design a practical funding structure for nutrition programmes across Nigeria.

At a virtual council meeting on Thursday, the Vice President said financing is now the central reform issue and warned that policy promises will keep failing households unless approved money is released on time, protected, and tracked to outcomes.

The new subcommittee has been given 30 days to produce a financing roadmap for consideration by the NCN and the National Economic Council (NEC). The team is chaired by the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate. Members include the Ministers of Education, Water Resources, Women Affairs, and Science and Technology, alongside the Deputy Chief of Staff to the President and the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Health. The Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning will serve as secretariat.

Shettima also directed that development partners and private investors be involved in the process, including the Aliko Dangote Foundation.

According to the Vice President, the council agreed that Nigeria must move quickly on the National Nutrition Bill to strengthen legal backing for coordination, financing, and accountability across sectors. He said the ad-hoc technical committee on the bill will continue and will be co-chaired by the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.

Shettima said ministries, departments and agencies must ensure nutrition allocations are not only approved but also released and implemented. He said budgeting without releases cannot be treated as financing, and allocations without predictability cannot deliver reform.

The council also reviewed progress and gaps under major programmes, including Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) 2.0. Shettima urged governors to take faster action at state level so available resources are used quickly and effectively, especially in states with heavy nutrition burdens.

He said federal policy direction alone will not be enough because nutrition outcomes are determined in homes and communities. For that reason, he called for stronger ownership by states and local governments, and deeper participation from community leaders and frontline workers.

The Vice President said women must remain central to programme design and execution because of their role in childcare, household nutrition and food systems. He said women’s leadership and participation should be fully reflected in planning and decision-making.

The council was updated on national nutrition budgeting, including areas of progress and financing gaps at federal and subnational levels. Priority actions discussed included extending reform initiatives across tiers of government, consolidating national scale-up efforts under ANRiN 2.0, and sustaining regular reporting to the NCN for tighter oversight.

Members were told that State Councils on Nutrition have already been inaugurated in Abia, Adamawa, Borno, Cross River, Jigawa, Plateau, Rivers, Yobe and Zamfara, while additional states are in progress.

Participants at the meeting included representatives of state governments, development partners and professional bodies. Contributions were made by Kwara State Governor Abdulrahman AbdulRazaq, the Chairman of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria board, Muhammad Sanusi II, and development partners including UNICEF and the Aliko Dangote Foundation, all of whom reaffirmed support for nutrition-focused interventions.

The council also received an update on the Food and Nutrition Security Preparedness Plan and the Nutrition 774 implementation realities. It was advised to mandate nutrition-relevant ministries to develop inter-ministerial priorities with measurable performance targets aligned with N774, and to drive household-level convergence of nutrition-smart interventions.

Shettima said every naira committed to nutrition must be traceable from budget lines to real change in communities. He said the country needs stronger budget tagging, tracking, and chart-of-accounts reforms so citizens can see what is funded and what has been delivered.

He said unless nutrition financing is ring-fenced, the distance between commitments and measurable results will remain wide. The immediate task before government institutions, he said, is execution that can be verified in all 774 local government areas.