The Committees were tasked at a durbar to complement efforts of health officials in case search and referrals, document evidences they find and hold quarterly meetings with officials of the assembly to help find lasting solution to the growing problem of malnutrition.

The GTLC with support from the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) facilitated formation of the committees, which aim to work towards increasing food and nutrition security as well as supporting smallholder farmers, especially women, to increase their income.

Mr Emmanuel Wullingdool, GTLC Policy Officer, told the Ghana News Agency that nutrition remained an important component in the development process of every nation, hence the need to pay much attention to it in Upper West where many lives were reported to be at risk due to undernourishment.

According to the Ghana Living Standard 2017 Survey the three regions in northern Ghana contributed more than 40 percent to national poverty due to underfeeding or malnutrition in the country’s main savannah zones.

According to GTLC from 2011 to the middle of 2018, Wa West District recorded 1,266 cases of severe malnutrition with 281 coming from the Poyentanga sub –district.

Mr Wullingdool stated that with 22 percent of malnourished cases recorded in the Wa West District this year coming from Poyentanga, the situation could get worse if nothing was done about it.

He urged the District Assembly to support the Community Nutrition Committees to work assiduously towards ensuring that the issues of malnutrition were being eliminated.

Mr Simon Awini, the Wa West District Nutrition Officer, said malnutrition had become a major problem in the District, given the fact that 100 malnourished children were recorded between January and October 2018, though 92 of them were being treated.

Poyentanga alone as a sub-district recorded 32 malnourished cases out of which 18 were being treated by health officials.

“Nutrition is the bedrock of human income and if people are malnourished they will be insufficient in so many areas in life,” Mr Awini said.

Madam Elizabeth A. Kutina, the Upper West Regional Women in Agricultural Development Officer, expressed dissatisfaction about the Region being tagged as the poorest and malnourished one in Ghana since “great farmers and better food stuff” were produced in Upper West.