The
National Nutrition Agency (NaNa) and the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare
recently held a press briefing on the on-going project called, “The Maternal
and Child Nutrition and Health Results Project” (MCNHRP), held at the NaNa
office in Kanifing.
Speaking
at the press briefing, Pa Modou Phall, NaNA executive director said the project
started as a pilot in the North Bank Region and moved to five regions gradually
due to the limited resources provided.
They
look at the areas that have the highest rate of maternal mortality, infant
mortality and a higher rate of malnutrition, he said.
According
to Mr Phall, the project was jointly implemented by the NaNA and the ministry
of Health.
The
aim of the project is to contribute to the improvement of the health status of
the population by providing accessible and equitable services of good quality
health and nutrition services in The Gambia.
Phall
further explained that the MCNHRP project would be operating in five regions
namely, Central River Region, North Bank Region West, Upper River Region, Lower
River Region and North Bank Region East respectively.
It
would cover about 46 per cent of the population, or 770,000 people in the
country would be covered.
The
NaNa executive director said the project’s development objective is to increase
utilisation of community nutrition and primary maternal and child health
services, in the selected regions of The Gambia using a combination of supply
and demand, and so on.
‘’The project is about results. We want to
achieve results that will impact on people’s health and nutritional status. We
are also very much interested in the quality of the service being given to the
people.’’
Phall
challenged the journalists to continue reporting to educate and inform the
people more, about the importance of child health nutrition, and further urged
the beneficiary communities to make best use of the project.
He
said the ministry of Health and NaNA are the implementing partners, and they
have other government structures involved as well.
