In a bid to address the threat of hunger the House of Representatives has scheduled a national food security summit to be held from July 8 to 10, to which stakeholders are invited.
The summit, themed ‘Curbing malnutrition and food insecurity through effective synergies’, will be held in Abuja.
Speaking at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, Chike Okafor, chairman of the House committee on Nutrition and Food Security, said the summit was part of the activities scheduled for the green chamber’s open week.
Okafor said Nigeria continues to grapple with “alarming rates of malnutrition and food insecurity” despite decades of national policies and sectoral programmes aimed at improving nutrition and food systems.
He said children under the age of five, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and vulnerable populations in rural areas bore the brunt of the crisis.
The lawmaker said the situation was exacerbated by such factors as climate change and environmental degradation, persistent insecurity across food-producing regions, high inflation and cost of living, inadequate infrastructure for food storage, processing, distribution, and low public investment in nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions.
Okafor said the summit would serve as a multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder engagement platform to bring together relevant actors from the executive and legislative branches across Federal, State, and Local levels, as well as key development partners and the private sector.
The objective of the summit, he noted, was to harmonise legislative, policy, and programmatic responses to nutrition and food security challenges across all tiers of government.
He added that the event also sought to examine innovative and sustainable financing mechanisms for nutrition, including public-private partnerships (PPP), and formulate strategies for building resilient and inclusive food systems, particularly in the face of climate shocks, economic disruptions, and insecurity.
He said the event would also strengthen parliamentary oversight and accountability frameworks for implementing nutrition-related programmes and budgets and align development partner interventions with national legislative priorities, ensuring coordinated and impactful support.
Said Okafor: “The summit is not intended to be a ceremonial event, but a catalyst for decisive and coordinated action”.
The lawmaker said the summit was expected to strengthen legislative frameworks for nutrition and food security at the Federal and State levels, among others.
