National Nutrition Financing Committee calls for prioritization of nutrition in 2025 budget

The National Nutrition Financing Technical Committee, established with the support of the World Bank under the Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) Project, has made a significant advocacy push towards ensuring the prioritization of nutrition interventions in Nigeria’s upcoming 2025 national budget. In a high-level visit to the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, the committee aimed to secure support for addressing the country’s food and nutrition crisis, which has been exacerbated by ongoing socio-economic challenges.

The Nutrition Finance Committee comprises key stakeholders including the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, representatives from the Office of the Vice President, Budget Office of the Federation, Accountant-General of the Federation, Nigerian Governors Forum, World Bank, Results for Development and the Civil Society Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN).

During the visit, the committee emphasized the need for evidence-based nutrition interventions to be prioritized in the 2025 budgets of relevant Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) and for the nutrition budget envelope to be expanded to meet Nigeria’s growing needs. Furthermore, the visit reiterated that tagging nutrition budgets by MDAs using the national adopted nutrition budget tagging framework would foster nutrition resource tracking viz-a-viz appropriation, releases and implementation. The meeting laid the foundation for stronger multi-sectoral collaboration and highlighted the urgency of securing sustainable financing to combat malnutrition and promote healthier food systems across the country.

Following the visit, the Task Team Leader of the Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria Project, Dr Ritgak Tilley-Gyado explained that the inclusion of nutrition in budget circulars was realized two years ago and continues to apply learning and adaptation to ensure greater effectiveness. She further stated that it is part of a broader set of analytical efforts and public financial management reforms that include allocative efficiency analysis for budget prioritization, all geared towards ensuring domestic resources are increased and efficiently applied to tackle malnutrition and improve human capital. These complement the bottom-up sustainable financing frameworks co-developed by the ANRiN Project and Sustainable Financing for Nutrition (SUSTAIN), a project which is financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, across the 12 ANRiN Implementing States.

Strengthening Nigeria’s Nutrition Landscape

Budget data from the last three years have shown gradual growth of domestic resources for nutrition in the federal budget from 10.8 billion Naira in 2021, 6.5 billion Naira in 2023 to 18.0 billion Naira in 2024. This significant leap in domestic budgets has been credited to a push by the National Council on Nutrition under the leadership of the Vice-President, Kashim Shettima. Uju Anwukah, Special Assistant to the President on Public Health in the Office of the Vice-President stressed the need to continue to build on the foundations to expand national and subnational domestic resources for nutrition, whilst leveraging available external financing from development partners and fostering innovative partnerships with the private sector. Mrs Anwukah also expressed that the establishment of Legislative Committees on Food Security and Nutrition would enable stronger collaboration between the legislative and executive arms to tackle Nigeria’s challenges headlong.

The advocacy visit and ongoing engagements on nutrition financing underscore the commitment of key stakeholders to address the growing concerns of food security and malnutrition in Nigeria. By leveraging this partnership with the Budget Office of the Federation, the ANRiN Project and its partners hope to build a more sustainable and well-funded nutrition ecosystem, ensuring that nutrition interventions reach the most vulnerable populations and contribute to Nigeria’s broader socio-economic development.

Supervising Director for the Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) Project highlighted that tackling malnutrition requires long term political will, financing commitments and institutional capacity. She specified that the institutionalization of nutrition in sector budgets at national and state level will ensure that innovative solutions promoted through the ANRiN Project can be sustained even beyond the life of the project, to support Nigeria on this long-term mission of improving the well-being, health and development of its people.