| Home | Politics | Human Rights | Water | Economy | Education | Sci & Tech | Culture | Sport |
07 February, 2008
Addis Ababa, February 7, 2008 (Addis Ababa) - The government of Ethiopia launched here on Thursday its first-ever National Nutrition Strategy (NNS), which will ensure that all Ethiopians secure an adequate nutritional status.
The move comes in the wake of new evidence from the Lancet Series, world’s leading independent medical journal, on Maternal and Child Undernutrition, showing that malnutrition accounts for more than 3.5 million child deaths every year worldwide.
Speaking at the launching ceremony, Deupty Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Addisu Legesee said the government has long subscribed to the goals of human development and poverty eradication as guiding principles for its development strategy and programs.
The minister stressed the importance of fighting malnutrition as its negative impact goes beyond the individual suffering.
The second five-year plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty calls for the implementation of the NNS and nutrition program, he said.
“The implementation of NNS is considered as one of the foundations for Ethiopia’s aspirations for achieving all Millennium Development Goals,” Addisu said.
Speaking on his part Health Minister of Tedros Adhanom said the government has embarked up on massive undertakings health extension program since 2004 which serves as a vehicle to bring nutrition security to household level.
Currently, he said, of the total 30,000 required health extension workers, more than 24,640 are deployed in their own respective communities.
Tedros said the implementation of the National Nutrition Program is estimated to cost about 351.3 million US Dollars for the coming five years of which the government has already secured 96.4 million USD.
Excluding over 62.1 million US Dollars pledged by the World Bank and other sources, there is a total gap of 192.6 million US Dollars to finance the program.
He said he was optimistic that partners, donors and UN, bilateral and private sector will manage to close the gap.
Speaking on behalf of the UN system in Ethiopia, UNICEF Ethiopia Country Representative, Bjorn Ljungqvist said though Africa is still home for one third of the 178 million undernourished children in all developing countries, Ethiopia is making a significant progress in this regard.
He said the UN family will provide unconditional support for the government’s effort to ‘end hunger and malnutrition in Ethiopia’, one of the key commitments for the new Ethiopian Millennium.
The National Nutrition strategy aims to scale up nutrition success by providing a framework to coordinate planning and programming across multiple sectors and ministries.
The Lancet’s series launched on same day analyses the effectiveness and potential impact of nutrition-related interventions and policy options.
Senior government officials, ambassadors, representatives of pertinent governmental and non-governmental organizations, among others, attended the launch ceremony.
The Ethiopian News Agency