In the last 12 years, the number of infants under six months of age who are exclusively breastfed in Nigeria has increased by more than 10 per cent. Today, 34 percent of infants in Nigeria benefit from this healthy start in life, translating to hundreds of thousands of babies whose lives have been saved by breastfeeding.

While this significant leap brings us closer to the World Health Organization target of increasing exclusive breastfeeding to at least 50 per cent by 2025, there are persistent challenges that must be addressed.

“Breastfeeding is the foundation of lifelong health and well-being. It is a simple, cost-effective, and natural way to provide infants with the nutrients they need for healthy growth and development”, said Cristian Munduate, UNICEF Nigeria’s Country Representative. “However, despite its proven benefits, exclusive breastfeeding rates in Nigeria remain low. Many mothers face cultural, social, and practical barriers that prevent them from breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months of their child’s life”.

During this critical period of early growth and development, the antibodies in breastmilk protect babies against illness and death. This is especially important during emergencies, when breastfeeding guarantees a safe, nutritious, and accessible food source for infants and young children. Breastfeeding reduces the burden of childhood illness, and the risk of certain types of cancers and noncommunicable diseases for mothers.

This World Breastfeeding Week, under the theme “Closing the gap: Breastfeeding support for all,” UNICEF and WHO are emphasizing the need to improve breastfeeding support as a critical action for reducing health inequity and protecting the rights of mothers and babies to survive and thrive.

In Nigeria, key gaps in breastfeeding support include insufficient maternity leave policies, lack of workplace support, and inadequate access to breastfeeding education and services, particularly in rural areas. Only seven states offer the recommended 24 weeks of paid maternity leave, and many women return to work without the necessary support to continue breastfeeding.

To close these gaps, the government, employers, healthcare providers, and communities need to collaborate. Policies should be enacted to extend paid maternity leave, create breastfeeding-friendly workplaces, and provide comprehensive breastfeeding education and support services.

This year, UNICEF is supporting Nigeria in setting the world record for the highest number of lactating mothers breastfeeding simultaneously. 30,000 mothers will breastfeed their babies across all 36 states in Nigeria and the FCT on August 1st, 2024. This initiative not only aims for a record but also seeks to draw attention to the importance of breastfeeding, as well as challenge harmful nutrition norms and practices, specifically the introduction of water and other pre-lacteal feeds during the first six months of a baby’s life.

To support progress, data needs to be available on policy actions that make breastfeeding possible such as family friendly employment policies, regulation of the marketing of breastmilk substitutes, and investment in breastfeeding. Improving monitoring systems will help boost the effectiveness of breastfeeding policies and programmes, inform better decision-making, and ensure support systems can be adequately financed.

When breastfeeding is protected and supported, women are more than twice as likely to breastfeed their infants. This is a shared responsibility. Families, communities, healthcare workers, policymakers, and other decision-makers all play a central role by: 

Increasing investment in programmes and policies that protect and support breastfeeding through dedicated national budgets.
Implementing and monitoring family friendly workplace policies, such as paid maternity leave, breastfeeding breaks and access to affordable and good-quality childcare.
Ensuring mothers who are at-risk in emergencies or under-represented communities, receive breastfeeding protection and support in line with their unique needs, including timely, effective breastfeeding counselling as part of routine health coverage.
Improving monitoring of breastfeeding programmes and policies to inform and further improve breastfeeding rates.
Developing and enforcing laws restricting the marketing of breast-milk substitutes, including digital marketing practices, with monitoring to routinely report the Code violations.”
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of UNICEF Nigeria.

The number of children in Sudan seeking treatment for severe acute malnutrition (SAM) has surged to unprecedented levels with clinics overwhelmed and global experts on food security warning that parts of the country are in the worst possible phase of hunger, Save the Children said. 

A health and nutrition manager for Save the Children in the central southern state of South Kordofan said the number of under-fives admitted with SAM in June alone was 99% of the programme’s expected case load for the year [1] . 

In one clinic cases of SAM – the most extreme form of malnutrition – increased nearly fourfold between June 2023 and June this year, new data shows [2]. SAM shuts down children’s immune systems and makes otherwise non-life-threatening conditions like diarrhea potentially lethal.  

The aid group’s findings come as the latest report from the Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – the leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises – flagged the increasing severity of the food crisis in the country [3].  

More than 15 months of conflict have killed and injured thousands of children, forced many into child labour, destroyed healthcare and education, upended food systems, and created the world’s worst child displacement crisis with 6.7 million children now forced from their homes [4].   

Displaced people are now overwhelming health facilities, turning up starving, sick and exhausted, according to Save the Children staff. They are seeing an increase in conditions such as acute respiratory infections (ARI), which can be caused and exacerbated by malnutrition [5]. 

Munir*, health and nutrition manager for Save the Children in South Kordofan, said: 

“IDPs (internally displaced people) have lost all basic needs due to conflict, they can only eat inadequate food, and most children show signs of exhaustion, fatigue, severe wasting and illness. Most ARI cases are linked with poor diet and malnutrition. 

Describing the conditions in Kordofan, Munir* said: “I saw schools, mosques, public institutions, villages, and some roads in cities full of displaced people sleeping in plastic sheets without mattresses or beds. Many of them complain of chronic diseases and high costs of medicine and food, and some of them depend for food on subsidies from charitable people or organizations, but the aid is not enough. The profession of begging has spread in the Kordofan areas.” 

Child labour is rampant as families are forced to take desperate measures to get their hands on whatever food they can to stay alive, Save the Children said, with children toiling in temperatures as high as 45 degrees C. 

In South Kordofan, children younger than 15 are doing manual labour such as carrying heavy jerry cans full of water, washing carts, unloading heavy goods from trucks, construction and even driving rickshaws. 

In Central Darfur, Save the Children staff have come across children who have been completely separated from their parents and are now working in a local market [6].  

Meanwhile, the number of people seeking treatment at Save the Children health facilities in Central Darfur nearly doubled in the year to June 2024 [7]. Staff in Darfur are also overwhelmed themselves, with some having lost family members including children, their homes and their belongings. 

Dr Arif Noor, Country Director of Save the Children in Sudan, said: “In Sudan, time is running out to keep children alive. And yet parties to the conflict and those with international influence have failed to put an end to the fighting over and over again.  

“Some children who are surviving are forced to work in unimaginable conditions, some separated from family members and vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.  

“We have been saying it for 15 months and we will keep saying it until we no longer need to – it is time for an immediate and lasting ceasefire, and for a mammoth surge of support for the 14 million children in Sudan whose lives have been shattered.” 

Recent Save the Children analysis of IPC figures found that 16.4 million children, or three in every four children, faced “crisis”, “emergency” or “catastrophe” levels of hunger – almost double the figure of 8.3 million from last December [8]. 

The humanitarian response for Sudan is significantly underfunded, with donors contributing just 32.3% to a $2.7 billion UN response plan. 

Save the Children is calling for an immediate ceasefire and meaningful progress towards a lasting peace agreement. In the meantime, the child rights organisation is pushing for safe, unimpeded humanitarian access to civilians across border routes and fighting lines inside Sudan; the safeguarding of vital infrastructure essential for food systems, such as markets, agricultural land, and storage facilities; and immediate intervention from the international community to fully fund the Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan to save children’s lives.

Save the Children has worked in Sudan since 1983 and is currently supporting children and their families across Sudan providing health, nutrition, education, child protection and food security and livelihoods support. Save the Children is also supporting refugees from Sudan in Egypt and South Sudan. 

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Save the Children.

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), Leonardo Santos Simão, concluded yesterday a three-day visit to Ghana. He participated in the stakeholder forum that took place on 30 July in Kumasi, in preparation of the upcoming presidential elections to be held on 7 December 2024.

During his visit, Mr. Simão had meetings with Her Ladyship Gertrude Torkornoo, Chief Justice, Dr. George Akuffo Dampare, Inspector General of the Police, former President John Mahama, flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress, Honorable Simon Osei-Mensah, Ashanti Regional Minister, Rev. Ernest Adu Gyamfi, Chairman of the Board of the National Peace Council (NPC), media houses.

In his intervention at the Kumasi stakeholder forum, the Special Representative urged all stakeholders “to strengthen their resolve and commitment to peaceful elections, through individual responsible behavior, collaboration and permanent dialogue with others, in pursuit of that objective, and build trust in the electoral process”. Mr. Simão highlighted that these elections will once more test the strength of Ghana’s thirty-year-old democratic process.

The Special Representative Simão reiterated the United Nations readiness to accompany Ghana’s democratic consolidation. Last week, the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for West Africa and the Sahel, Barrie Freeman, attended the stakeholder forum in Tamale. These forums organized by the National Peace Council (NPC) with the support of UNOWAS, are part of efforts to promote peaceful, inclusive, transparent, free and fair,  2024 elections in Ghana.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS).

Concluding a three-day mission to Somalia where famine was averted in 2022, World Food Programme Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, Carl Skau stressed that there is no time to rest, as needs in the country remain critically high.

The mission included a visit to Baidoa in the Southwest region of Somalia, one of the worst drought-affected areas in 2022.

“During my time in Baidoa, I met families who had to leave their homes due to conflict and extreme climate shocks. Families are stuck in a cycle of climate disasters, displacement, and a lack of nutritious food and education,” said Skau. The Somali people show incredible resilience every day. It is critical now that the government, the UN, and its partners target the most vulnerable and ensure that the right assistance reaches them on time.”

Somalia’s longest drought (2020-2023) ended with floods in November 2023. The floods – by some estimates the worst in decades – affected two million people and drove 750,000 people from their homes.

An unprecedented humanitarian scale-up by WFP and partners helped to avert famine in Somalia. While these efforts and increased rainfall this year have improved food security since the peak of the drought (6.6 million), almost 3.4 million people still experience crisis-level hunger (IPC3).

“I spoke with staff who were at the worst-affected sites during the peak of the emergency. What we have achieved with the Government and partners is commendable, but we cannot stop. WFP is committed to delivering assistance to the most vulnerable. Reaching all those in need and the safety of our staff is of the utmost importance. Humanitarian access must be preserved at all costs,” said Skau.

This year’s rains were milder than last year’s, reducing flood risks. However, communities still face the lingering effects of past shocks, and forecasts predict ongoing dry conditions with below-average rainfall in the upcoming season.

“Somalia is at a turning point. We need to provide nutritious food to families, address the root causes of hunger, and help communities adapt to continuous cycles of climate shocks,” added Skau.

In 2023, WFP supported 315,000 people in Somalia with resilience-building activities such as climate-smart food systems and livelihoods support, preparedness, recovery and water resource management.

Through its Anticipatory Action Plan, WFP delivered early warning messages to 1.9 million people and cash transfers worth US$1 million to 80,000 people facing potential flood risks in 2024. WFP works with the Somali Disaster Management Agency and closely monitors and activates early warning systems during the rainy seasons.

“Resources are limited, but now is the time to invest in resilience and climate adaptation to prepare for and mitigate the impact of shocks. WFP is stepping up its efforts to foster more resilient communities,” said Skau.

During the mission, Skau engaged with the Somali Deputy Prime Minister and key Ministries, including Agriculture, Energy&Water Resources, Environment&Climate Change, and Livestock, as well as longstanding international development partners.  These discussions converged on the need to enhance food systems and social protection and to embrace new technologies for sustainable development. This would only be possible with unimpeded access to affected populations.

WFP is the largest humanitarian organisation in Somalia and operates in the most remote and hard-to-reach areas, assisting around 3 million people every month. WFP has become a lifeline for communities through support to the Government and humanitarian partners via the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service, and Food Security, Nutrition and Logistics clusters. 

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of World Food Programme (WFP).