The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) have vowed to support and influence the Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) project, to meet its set goals on social and behaviour change around maternal, infants and young child nutrition.

The ANRiN project is a Federal Government initiative through the Federal Ministry of Health with support from the World Bank, seeking to increase availability and utilisation of quality, cost‐effective nutrition services for pregnant and lactating women, adolescent girls, and children under five years of age in 12 high malnutrition burden states in Nigeria.

CAN President, Rev. Daniel Okoh, and the JNI Secretary General, Dr. Khalid Aliyu, made the vow while speaking during a meeting with the ANRiN Project Management team at CAN Secretariat in Abuja.

According to a statement issued and made available to The Star on Wednesday by the Executive Director, Centre for Communication and Social Impact, Babafunke Fagbemi, the CAN President, who hosted the ANRiN project management team, said: “Nutrition is needed in the local communities at the grassroots and welcomes any intervention that meets the needs of the grassroots.”

Okoh reassured of CAN’s support, adding that a team would be set up to work with the ANRiN team and hopes that the association would support the project after it outlives its lifespan.

He stated that having been involved in the roll-back malaria project, he believes that the ANRiN project introduced during his own tenure would also be a great success.

He further pledged to continuously educate religious leaders to incorporate and disseminate health/nutrition messages.

On his part, the JNI Secretary General said: “You are on the right path by working with faith leaders as we have the coverage and influence, we have different fora that we use to reach our people.”

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Aliyu commended the team’s efforts on the social and behaviour change materials that have been developed and assured that JNI would review the documents and validate the scriptural verses where needed.

He equally assured the ANRiN project management team that JNI would use its network to ensure the social and behaviour change materials are properly deployed and used by faith leaders across the implementing states once they are validated and approved by the apex bodies.

The National Project Manager of the ANRiN project, Dr. Ojuolape Solanke, while speaking about the project, said the ANRiN project was two-prong with a service delivery component at the community level targeted at pregnant women, lactating women, children under 5 years, and newborns, and a mass communication component focusing on mass media and faith leaders.

Solanke noted that the project has been in existence since 2019, providing intervention in 12 states of the federation with the highest burden of malnutrition in Nigeria

She added that this would be done by using Interpersonal Communication through faith leaders, which has led to the meetings of the faith leaders.

She further stated that another channel is the National Mass Media Campaign.

The Technical Team Lead of the ANRiN project from the World Bank, Dr. Ritgak Dimka Tilley-Gyado, said the project needs the guidance of the faith leaders in moving forward, especially on the campaign materials to be deployed to the states.

Tilley-Gyado stated that the experience of faith leaders in reaching out to the congregations would come to bear on the project, saying it would help in using appropriate messages and channels to reach target audience.

On her part, the Executive Director of CCSI, Babafunke Fagbemi, noted that research and evidence were leveraged, evidenced by the selection of 12 high-burden states where the intervention would make the most impact and by delving into the social, gender, and religious norms and barriers that need to be removed to enable beneficiaries to improve their practices around nutrition.

The Star