The Katsina State Government on Tuesday in Katsina inaugurated the 2026 SMART Nutrition Survey to generate reliable data for evidence-based planning and improved nutrition interventions across the state.
The Statistician-General of the Katsina State Bureau of Statistics, Prof. Saifullahi Sani, said the survey was an important investment in the survival, growth and development of children and the wellbeing of women of reproductive age.
Sani said statistics were not merely numbers but evidence upon which governments base their decisions, allocate resources, monitor progress and assess the effectiveness of public interventions.
He said the 2025 SMART Survey recorded a Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) prevalence of 7.4 per cent, stunting of 46.3 per cent and underweight of 25.8 per cent among children in the state.
According to him, the decline in GAM from 13.5 per cent in 2022 to 9.4 per cent in 2023, 11.2 per cent in 2024 and 7.4 per cent in 2025 is encouraging.
He however said that the high levels of stunting and underweight remain a major concern.
Sani said infant and young child feeding practices also required greater attention.
He noted that although 97.9 per cent of children were breastfed in 2025, exclusive breastfeeding stood at only 21.2 per cent, while minimum dietary diversity was 28.5 per cent.
He identified inflation, conflict, displacement, poverty, large family size, childhood morbidity and inadequate coverage of interventions as some of the factors contributing to nutrition challenges in the state.
The Statistician-General also said that about 73,500 people in Katsina were in emergency food insecurity conditions between October and December 2025, with further deterioration projected for the June to August lean season.
He said that the state government had expanded treatment services for acute malnutrition from 147 Outpatient Therapeutic Programme (OTP) sites and seven Stabilisation Centres in 2024 to 332 OTP sites and 14 Stabilisation Centres in 2025 respectively.
“The programme is being further expanded in 2026 to cover all 34 local government areas, with 406 OTP sites and 15 Stabilisation Centres, alongside other interventions including food vouchers, cash transfers, supplementation and maternal, infant and young child nutrition programmes.
“The survey will assess wasting, stunting and underweight among children aged 0-59 months.
“It will also assess mortality rates, childhood morbidity, nutrition intervention coverage, maternal nutrition, infant and young child feeding practices, health-seeking behaviour and key Water, Sanitation and Hygiene indicators.
“The survey will cover all 34 LGAs grouped into seven survey domains, using a cross-sectional household survey design and a two-stage cluster sampling approach to ensure statistically robust findings,” he said.
Sani urged enumerators, supervisors and technical personnel to adhere strictly to approved methodology.
He said that the quality of policy decisions can not be better than the quality of evidence on which they were based.
He appealed to security agencies, traditional rulers, religious leaders and community leaders to support the field teams by providing security intelligence, sensitising communities and encouraging households to cooperate with the survey.
Speaking, UNICEF Planning and Monitoring Specialist, Nura Shehu, commended the Katsina State Government for its commitment to improving the nutritional wellbeing of children, women and vulnerable households.
Shehu said UNICEF considered reliable and timely nutrition data essential to strengthening prevention, early detection and treatment of malnutrition.
He said that the 2026 survey would help identify vulnerable populations and improve targeting of interventions.
He commended Gov. Dikko Radda for what he described as his exemplary leadership, particularly “for being the first governor in Nigeria to make specific budgetary appropriation for a SMART Nutrition Survey.”
According to Shehu, the decision demonstrated that quality data was not an expense but an investment in better planning, accountability, targeting and outcomes for children and families.
He urged the government and partners to ensure that the findings of the survey were translated into better policies, programmes and services.
The UNICEF official further encouraged communities and stakeholders to support the exercise for the successful generation and utilisation of credible nutrition data.
