By Kuda Pembere
Zimbabwe is among 19 African Union (AU) member states that are off-track to reduce stunting prevalence to 10 percent by 2025 as ratified in the Malabo Declaration.
This was said during a Resilient African Feed and Fodder Systems (RAFFS)workshop organized by the Africa Union InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR).
To eliminate child-undernutrition by 2025, Africa Union (AU) member states in 2014 promised to reduce stunting to 10 percent.
“In the 2024 Cadebayanu Review Report, the data shows that 26.7% of Zimbabwean children are stunted. So Zimbabwe is one of the 19 countries that has over 20 percent of its children stunted. And this is only one of the statistics on malnutrition.
“There is no country that is, there are only 7 countries out of 55 that are on track to address malnutrition by 2025. Zimbabwe is not one of them, your excellency,” said AU-IBAR Director Huyam Salih, in a speech read on her behalf by the organization’s team lead for the RAFFS project Dr Sarah Ashanut Ossiya.
Dr Salih suggested there be much attention to the feed and fodder sector for the sake of children.
“There needs to be a greater linkage of feed and fodder to production of livestock sourced foods, which are high-density protein and other sources, nutrition sources, which are critical to addressing malnutrition, especially among children who can only take in small amounts of food,” she said.
However, on the issue of stunting, Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development Deputy Minister Dr Davis Marapira said President Mnangagwa’s borehole drilling programme among others, is one of the measures taken to improve the nutrition status of the country.
“The President of Zimbabwe is actually ahead of us. The 35,000 boreholes and the 35,000 nutritional gardens, which are one hectare big, and 70,000 fish ponds.
“Ten trees per every villager. Tigris given to our farmers. Goats given to the farmers. And ten chickens, raw chickens, given to our farmers. It’s going to solve all those nutritional problems in Zimbabwe,” he said.
Of the 40 reporting Member States, only 7, including Cabo Verde and Ethiopia, are on track and these include Burkina Faso, Egypt, Kenya and Somalia while Uganda (26percent), Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe (26.7percent), Cameroon (28.7percent), Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Tanzania, Guinea, Nigeria (30.5percent), Eswatini, Benin, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Lesotho, Niger, Burundi, and Madagascar (79.7percent).
Stunting according to medical experts affects children’s cognitive abilities.
