It was concluded that the National Plan on Food and Nutrition (2002) has largely remained unimplemented due to lack of budgetary allocation, and that it does not address the emerging nutrition issues. The National Nutrition Council has yet to be inaugurated.

The objectives of this Summit were to:

• Identify, prioritise and discuss major challenges with nutrition in Nigeria and recommend necessary policy and programme action to address them


• Advocate for increased resource allocations for nutrition interventions by all stakeholders in Nigeria


• Deliberate and develop a road map for scaling up nutrition in Nigeria

Observations from the Summit concluded that (inter alia):

• There is a policy and plan of action in place


• Evidence based interventions are being implemented but coverage is low


• There are a large number of development partners providing technical and financial support to nutrition


• The National Plan of Action has remained unimplemented because of a lack of adequate budget and the existing national policy does not address some emerging issues


• The National Nutrition Council is yet to be inaugurated


• The National Committee on Food and Nutrition is not functional


• There is a lack of technical capacity both in the National planning Commission and across all sectors generally


• Community involvement in nutrition activities has been weak.

The Summit concluded that there is a need to provide adequate public funding, to revise national plans, senior nutritionists be appointed to remedy lack of capacity, nutrition concerns should be mainstreamed into agriculture and other relevant sector plans and develop a team of champions to push advocacy.

A major roadblock is the lack of a dedicated budget to nutrition. However funding is available if it was channelled in the right direction, and this could be supplemented by donors. At the Federal level nutrition has to be funded at present from the primary health care line. In addition the Federal and States governance system represents both constraints and opportunities. The Federal level has the role of advising and coordinating making while implementation and sustainability takes place at the state level. If a small number of State Governors became nutrition ‘champions’, then they might be able to have a real impact at that level and inspire others to do the same, and build in a commitment that is demanded from communities in other states.