RUYIGI September 13th (ABP) – The provincial food security and nutrition platform met on Monday, September 11 to evaluate quarterly achievements and set new objectives for the next quarter.
The members of that platform realized that all the communes have set up food security and nutrition steering committees but that there are still certain environments which experience cases of acute malnutrition.
Butezi commune and Gisuru commune come first with the cases of malnutrition identified, it was also noted that most of the affected families are poor and that some of them make no effort to get out of their situation.
Note that most of these affected people come from families originating from cohabitation or sex workers with multiple partnerships. It is deplorable to report the observation that certain micronutrients which are distributed mainly to children who suffer from severe malnutrition, are sent directly to the market and are sold openly, in certain shops.
Meeting participants made recommendations for the effectiveness and efficiency of that platform. That includes completing the activities of the first and second quarters which are still pending and carrying out the campaign to search for micronutrients which may still be on sale in the different localities of the province.
They also committed to ensuring good monitoring of families disposing of the malnourished by the grassroots administration and to increasing awareness rising for behavior change.
With the aim of motivating the people to focus on increasing production in households and thus combating malnutrition and food insecurity, the members of PPSAN Ruyigi agreed to raise awareness among the population in the aim of avoiding the opening of bistros before the time set by the administration. Finally, they committed to organizing food collection campaigns in the markets of all municipalities to build up stocks which serve as nutrients and rations, for identified cases of extreme poverty and who risk falling into food insecurity and nutrition.