UNICEF raises the alarm over malnutrition crisis in Benue

From Scholastica Hir, Makurdi

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has raised concerns over the worsening malnutrition crisis in parts of Benue State, revealing that a recent assessment conducted in a community affected by displacement recorded an alarming 46 per cent rate of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) among children.

The UNICEF Nutrition Specialist, Enugu Field Office, Mrs Ngozi Onuora, who spoke during a stakeholders’ meeting in Makurdi, said the disturbing figure underscored the urgent need for the Benue government to invest and coordinate action to prevent malnutrition, particularly during the critical first 1,000 days of a child’s life.

She said the intervention is being supported through a grant provided by the United States Government to UNICEF in 2026 to tackle malnutrition from conception until a child’s second birthday, a period she described as the most important window for brain development, physical growth and human capital formation.

Onuora said: “In this year of 2026, the U.S. government gave a grant to UNICEF to prevent malnutrition in the first 1,000 days of life. And the modalities for that grant also align with the country programme document and the Nigerian plan; multisectoral plan of action for nutrition in terms of preventing malnutrition in the first 1,000 days of life.

The 1,000 days of life spans from the time the child is conceived in the mother’s womb until the child’s second birthday; that’s from conception to the child’s second birthday.

That is the window of opportunity for rapid growth – for brain development and for human capital development. That is when the foundation of health, foundation for appropriate growth, for economic emancipation of a country is actually laid, adding: “So we say that nutrition is the pivot for human capital development.”