Yendi (N/R), Dec. 21, GNA – The Yendi Municipal Assembly (YMA) and its Departments of Agriculture and Health have given account of their stewardship to the people saying they have done a lot to improve nutrition and reduce post-harvest loss (PHL) in the area.
Representatives of the Departments of Agriculture and Health took turns at a town hall meeting at Yendi to give account of their various interventions since 2018.
The meeting was organised by the Northern Development Society (NORDESO) as part of its implementation of the Voice Change Partnership Programme (V4CP) in the Yendi Municipality to address issues of malnutrition and PHL.
It was attended by representatives from the central administration of the YMA, Departments Agriculture, Health, and Education, citizens’ groups, women groups, youth groups, traditional authorities, farmer-based organisations (FBOs), civils society organisations, the social accountability working group and the media in the municipality.
The NORDESO’s collaboration with the YMA and its Agriculture and Health Departments as part of the V4CP achieved some successes this year, which included the organisation of pre-season event on PHL and the promotion of nutrition sensitive crop production and integrated nutrition services monitoring and formation of sub-district nutrition committees amongst others.
Mr Mark Atoobey, Yendi Municipal Nutrition Officer, who spoke during the meeting, said a total of 66 health workers and 108 Community Health Management Committee (CHMC) members were mentored and coached on nutrition sensitive data capture and reporting, and accountability processes in nutrition commodity distribution across the municipality.
Mr Atoobey said 78 CHMC meetings were held across the municipality to deliberate on issues confronting the implementation of the national nutrition policies adding six sub-municipal nutrition committees were also formed to support nutrition service delivery at the community levels.
He said 31 community durbars were organized in the municipality to sensitise community members on discarding socio-cultural myths that undermined nutrition intervention efforts in the area.
Mr Issahaku Yabdow, Yendi Municipal Crop Officer said in 2019 about 21 FBOs across the district, representing 10,450 small holder farmers, received training in PHL management in maize, groundnuts, rice, soyabeans and yam at both pre-season and pre-harvest events organized by Department of Agriculture in the area.
He added that two demonstration farms of soya and maize at Zang, Kpatia, Kushegu, Kpalgigbuni, Gukepegu and Gbungbaliga were established to provide on field training on PHL management for farmers.
Mr Gaspard Dery, Yendi Municipal Coordinating Director assured that the YMA would promptly release funds to the concerned departments in 2020 for effective implementation of their nutrition and PHL activities as contained in the current medium term plan (2018-2021) of the Assembly.
Mr Dery lauded the partnership between YMA and NORDESO, which had strengthened systems in the local governance sub-structures towards the provision of quality nutrition and PHL services to the people in the area.
Mr Bandim Danyuam, a Project Assistant at NORDESO urged the Planning Unit of YMA to promote and maintain sustainable collaboration and coordination among the Departments of Agriculture, Health, Education, Environment, and citizens’ groups since better nutrition outcomes depended on food availability, safety, hygiene and consumption.
Mr Yakubu Dawuni, President of the Cross Association of People Living with Disability at Yendi, urged the Department of Agriculture in the area to promote nutrition sensitive extension service delivery to address malnutrition in the area.
GNA
Read Full Story
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
Google+
YouTube
LinkedIn
RSS