Nutrition a crucial factor to MW development- CSONA

Civil Society Organization Nutrition Alliance (CSONA) is calling on government and other players to keep nutrition at the core of Malawi’s social economic development agenda as the world observes the third Global Day of Action towards nutrition from 1st to 8th May. Chronic malnutrition has been reduced 42% from 50% since 2004 05
May

Speaking at a press briefing in Lilongwe, CSONA Project Officer Victoria Mzunzu said despite a reduction in stunting or chronic malnutrition from 50% in 2004 to currently around 42% a lot still needs to be done.

“Nutrition should be at the core of social economic development of our country because if children are malnourished they will not grow up to be productive citizens of the country. This will have negative effects on sustainable development of our country and has to be treated with the priority that it deserves,” she said.

Director of Nutrition in the Department of Nutrition and HIV, Felix Pensulo Phiri said government realizes the importance of nutrition issues to development.

“Nutrition is not just a health issue, it’s cross-cutting. So we need to handle nutrition collectively not just leaving it to one sector. As government we joined the global movement of scaling up of nutrition which we call 1000 special days and are working with different partners, the UN, donor partners and CSO’s.

We have also tried to empower the communities to handle their own issues of nutrition; said Pensulo Phiri.

This year’s theme is ‘Keep the momentum: Nutrition at the core of Malawi’s socio-economic Development Agenda’ has been chosen to help in fighting malnutrition and encouraging government to implement nutrition sensitive interventions.

The NGO coalition has since asked the government and public figures to publicly commit and take action to end preventable maternal, newborn and child deaths as a priority. 

Source: https://www.mbc.mw/index.php/component/k2/item/214-nutrition-a-crucial-factor-to-mw-development-csona