Africa-Press – Tanzania. MINISTER of State in the President’s Office, Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG), Sulemain Jafo has requested nutrition officials to design a sustainable programme to boost the rate of nutrition among children less than five year of age in their areas.
In his opening remark during the 4th National Nutrition Strategy Implementation review that was held in Dodoma yesterday, Jafo raised concern on some officials who failed to initiate or sustain the programme after national or donor programmes came to an end.
“When donor funded programmes are phased out, there were no more local efforts from our officials to improve nourishment among our people,” the minister said.
Citing an example of Lake Zone region (Geita, Mwanza) where the then IMA World Health nutrition programme was implemented, the minister said after the programme was phased out, regional nutrition activities dropped.
Jafo asked officials to be creative in initiating or adopting nutrition programmes which should be on their shoulders to improve nourishment in their areas.
“We launched largescale nutrition programme in Rukwa due to the fact that the region has a high rate of malnutrition, but I have been informed that after the takeoff, nothing has been done to sustain it,” he added.
The minister also applauded regional commissioners for their effort to improve nutrition’s rate in their regions, including ensuring the councils set aside the funds to finance nutrition’s activities.
Jafo hinted that Tanzania has made substantial strides on improving the nutrition status in the country as the budget for facilitating the movement increased from 15bn/- in 2018/2019 to 16.5bn/- in 2020/2020.
On that move, Jafo ordered five Council Executive Directors to report to Permanent Secretary in the President’s Office (PO-RALG) to explain why they are behind on implementing the resolution tabled by high authority (PO-RALG) on enhancing nutrition activities.
“Only five councils remain behind on our effort to capitulate malnutrition, the directors from Chato, Bukoba, Masasi, Biharamulo and Misenyi council should appear before the PS to explain that,” he emphasized.
