Director of the Nutrition and Food Security Alliance of Namibia, Ben Schernick said there is a need to address malnutrition as a national priority, as the annual cost of malnutrition equals to N.dollars 11 billion per year.
Schernick said this following the alarming findings that 24 per cent of Namibian children have been identified as stunted leading to economic losses of N.dollars 11 billion a year, by the Cost of Hunger in Africa on Social and Economic Impact of Child Undernutrition (CHASE) in Namibia 2022 report.
Stunting occurs when a child does not have sufficient nutrition to grow and develop which is normally caused by a poor diet alone.
Schernick at a media briefing on Tuesday said the report further indicates that an estimated 12 711 child deaths in Namibia were directly associated with undernutrition before a child turns one year old. It also shows that 23.7 per cent of all repetitions in school are associated with stunting and stunted children achieve 13.9 per cent less in school education.
“We really need to put in efforts and look at the whole system. The gravity of the food and nutrition insecurity crisis and the urgency to take action is not fully understood. The Ministry of Health alone cannot do it, but all of us, starting from individuals ensuring that they eat a balanced diet, especially children under the age of two,” he stressed.
Schernick further indicated the Fill the Nutrients Gap (FNG) Namibia study report for 2021 shows that a family of five needs to spend at least N.dollars 3 131 per month on food items alone in order to meet their minimum nutrient requirements, noting 43.1 per cent of the adult population in Namibia suffered from stunting as children.
Schernick stressed there is an urgent need to promote and enable backyard gardens by decentralising local food production systems, to enable families to acquire a balanced diet from their backyards.
He also called on the government to move away from fragmented social grants and food support programmes towards a Universal Basic Income Grant (UBIG) of N.dollars 500 available to all Namibians who are not on the tax roll or receiving pension and veteran support.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency