Nigeria’s National Council on Nutrition has adopted a new National Policy on Food and Nutrition covering 2026 to 2035, aimed at cutting chronic child malnutrition over the next decade. The council approved it at its 15th meeting, held virtually and chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima, and directed the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning to present the policy to the Federal Executive Council for final ratification. The food and nutrition policy sets out a multi-sectoral approach spanning health, agriculture, education and social protection, which officials describe as evidence-based in design and grassroots in orientation. It replaces a patchwork of sector-specific strategies that had left nutrition programming split across several ministries without a single coordinating framework.
The policy responds to malnutrition levels that have stayed stubbornly high despite years of targeted interventions. Government figures cited alongside its approval put child stunting at roughly 32 per cent among under-fives, with wasting affecting 6 to 7 per cent of children and around two million needing urgent treatment for severe acute malnutrition. Shettima told the council the country would be judged by outcomes rather than intentions, and that delivery would matter more than the decision itself, with mothers and children across all 774 local government areas judging its success by 2035.
Implementation carries firm early deadlines. Federal ministries, departments and agencies with a role in nutrition must align their programmes and budgets with the new policy within 12 months. State governments have between six and nine months to operationalise their own multisectoral nutrition action plans, and all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory must establish functional state nutrition councils within three months, addressing a gap in which only nine such councils were reported active before the policy’s approval.
A bill and a bigger rollout
A draft National Nutrition Bill is due to reach the National Assembly within eight weeks, giving the policy legislative backing that previous nutrition strategies lacked. Delivery on the ground is organised around the Nutrition 774 Initiative, meant to extend interventions into every one of Nigeria’s 774 local government areas, rather than concentrating resources in a smaller set of priority states. A co-branded window for private sector participation is also expected to launch within 60 days of the council’s approval, bringing business funding into a programme that has relied mostly on government and donor budgets.
Deborah Odoh, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, described the document as a strategic framework linking food security to human capital development, tying the policy explicitly to Nigeria’s broader development goals rather than treating nutrition as a standalone health issue. The framing reflects a wider shift in how the council has approached the policy, positioning the document as an economic planning tool as much as a public health one.
Ratification still pending
Formal ratification of the food and nutrition policy by the Federal Executive Council had not been confirmed at the time of the council’s announcement, leaving a final procedural step before the policy carries full government backing. Shettima described the framework as the most consequential nutrition policy the country has produced, a claim that will be tested against the tight timelines the council has set for ministries and states over the coming months. Few state nutrition councils were active before this policy, so whether states can meet the three-month deadline for functional councils will be an early signal of how seriously it is being carried out.
