60,000 Mothers benefit from nutrition project
Sixty thousand mothers and children suffering from malnutrition and food insecurity in ten districts in northern Ghana are now receiving help through a new nutrition programme, which currently is being implemented by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the government.
The Ghana Country Director of WFP, Ms Mutinta Chimuka, said stunting and micronutrient deficiencies affected high numbers of mothers and children in Ghana and that almost 19 per cent of children under five in Ghana were stunted and as many as three out of ten in the Northern Region.
She said the children would suffer irreparable cognitive and physical damage and would not reach their full productive potential in future if their poor diets were not changed.
The overall goal of the intervention is to reduce stunting and micronutrient deficiencies by promoting behaviour of change of the consumption of both locally available and specialised nutritious foods.
Japanese funding
The implementation process of the nutrition intervention was inaugurated in January this year with a USD 2 million sponsorship provided by the Japanese government.
In June 2013, the nutrition project was launched by WFP and the Japanese government at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD).
In August 2014, WFP and the Japanese manufacturer of processed food and beverages, Ajinomoto, agreed on the specific implementation details of the food programme.
New food composition database
Central stakeholders addressed the problem of malnutrition and food insecurity furthermore on Wednesday, when the WFP, Ajinomoto Co. Inc., WAFOODS and partners with support from the Japanese government organised a stakeholder meeting to discuss the establishment of an up-to-date food composition database.
At the meeting, the Coordinator of West African Food Data Systems (WAFOODS), Dr George Amponsah Annor, said food composition data was the basis of all components in nutrition because it was needed for food labelling, nutrient intake, diet formulation among others.
He explained how 10 local foods had been sampled by Ajinomoto and that the new food composition for those foods would be included in the West Africa food composition database and compiled for a new food composition database for Ghana.
“The current Ghana food database is based on data from 1975, which are very defective and inaccurate in comparison to the new data, which are needed to address stunting and micronutrient deficiencies,” said Dr Annor.
He stressed the importance of harmonising and updating the databases from different institutions to make them available to all and to win the battle against malnutrition and food insecurity.