Kaduna Gets UNICEF Support On Improved Nutrition Data Management

The Kaduna State Government with support from UNICEF has taken measures to strengthen nutrition data management to improve decision-making and quality of service delivery across the state.

The State Nutrition Officer, Ramatu Haruna, disclosed this at a two-day training on Nutrition Data Management organised by the State Primary Health Care Board (KSPHCB) on Tuesday in Zaria.

She said over the years, there have been challenges on data management at different levels, adding that the training was to increase capacity and enhance skills in nutrition data management.

“Currently, the state, in partnership with UNICEF, is implementing Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) in 107 Out-Patient Therapeutic Centres in 21 local government areas (LGAs).

“Also, the Community Infant and Young Child Feeding programme is being implemented in the whole 23 LGAs of the state.

“Data from these activities are collected periodically and shared with all stakeholders at all levels for decision making,” she said.

The State Integrated Data Control Coordinator, Jibril Isah, said that the objective of the training was to strengthen competencies of HMIS and nutrition officers on the National HMIS data collection tools.

Also, Dr Neyu Iliyasu, Director, Family and Community Health Services, KSPHCB, noted that improving the capacity of data managers would significantly improve the quality of nutrition data across the council areas to enable the local councils and state government make informed decisions.

Nutrition Specialist, UNICEF Kaduna State, Chinwe Ezeife, said the training is crucial to ensuring effective data management for result-oriented decision making that would improve nutrition indices in the state.

The training, supported by UNICEF, was conducted for state officials, local government health authorities, nutrition focal persons and monitoring and evaluation officers as cited by NAN.