Private sector joins fight against malnutrition

Companies from the private sector, under the banner of the Corporate Managers’ Club (GICAM), have in concert with the Ministry of Public Health and the country office of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), decided to create an Investment Fund for Nutrition to support the fight against malnutrition in the country.

The measure that is contained in a release published on June 23, 2014 by UNICEF’s Yaounde office, is just a feature of the roadmap drawn after the first ever Nutrition Business Forum that held in GICAM’s office in Douala, capital of the Littoral Region, from 27 to 28 May, 2014.

The roadmap also reiterates the commitment by corporations to support the manufacture of food supplements for infants, promotes the use of the mobile phone as a vector of communication and data exchange as well as reinforces communication to benefit vulnerable communities.

Furthermore, “ambassador” enterprises will henceforth be forerunners of the private sector to carry out advocacy initiatives for the mobilisation of local resources to ensure the proper nutrition of children.

UNICEF sources say the over 30 representatives of the private sector present at the Douala Business Forum included companies operating in domains such as communication, telephone, transport, agroindustry, petroleum distribution and public works.

In the different presentations delivered by UNICEF and Health Ministry officials, they learnt that 178,140 children below five years are suffering from acute malnutrition this year, especially in the Far North, North, Adamawa and East regions.

The corporate officials were also told that malnutrition causes economic losses worth FCFA 354 billion to Cameroon every year, besides losses in productivity and reduction in human capital that constitutes a major impediment to development and the economic emergence of Cameroon.

Over one million Cameroonians to be born in the next generation risk being less productive because they might have suffered from chronic malnutrition.