Giving Compass' Take:

• Nigeria is facing food and nutrition security issues and suggestions from the international community are for the local government to implement policies addressing these issues and form collaborative coalitions to offer assistance. 

• How can philanthropists from other countries work with the Nigerian government to help fund FNS plans? 

• Read about the efforts of agritech startups that aim to lift Nigerian farmers out of poverty. 

International efforts are intensifying to end hunger and address the emerging challenge of feeding rapidly increasing populations, especially in the developing world. Globally one out of every three persons is undernourished, overweight, or obese. One in five children under five (or approximately 161 million) is stunted. Many countries lose some of their gross domestic product (GDP) due to undernutrition — up to 11 percent in the hardest-hit African and Asian countries.

In Nigeria, malnutrition, slow progress in reducing hunger, and new socioeconomic challenges highlight the urgent need for more concerted efforts by key stakeholders to address food and nutrition security (FNS) in the country. Nigeria accounts for 14 percent of all annual maternal deaths worldwide and 13 percent of all global deaths of children under age five. The alarming levels of these two indicators, which reflect level of food and nutrition insecurity in a country, are surpassed only by those for India. Moreover, latest reports rank Nigeria first in Africa and third globally on the incidence of malnutrition. Indeed, nearly 13 million Nigerians still suffer from hunger, with wide disparities across geopolitical zones and between urban and rural areas.

To improve FNS in Nigeria, the government should strive to strengthen policy and institutional frameworks for implementing FNS programs and better target some key priority areas. Specifically, the Federal Ministry of Budget and National Planning should establish a platform to accommodate federal, state, and local government collaboration in FNS programs. Likewise, the platform should coordinate development partners, NGOs, CSOs, and relevant committees. Furthermore, the ministry should prepare an investment plan for FNS intervention programs to form the basis for annual budgetary allocations and coordinate with development partners so that financing of FNS intervention programs is not so thinly spread.

Read the full article about improving food and nutrition security in Nigeria at Brookings.