The Health Ministry has launched the National Nutrition Policy to check rising malnutrition among Ghanaians, especially children under five years.

Health Minister, Alexander Segbefia, says there is a large section of the country's population who suffer nutrition related diseases such as stunted growth, underweight, obesity, anaemia among others.

Malnourished babies suffer mainly as a result poor breastfeeding, the minister noted.

These notwithstanding, he stated that Ghana has made remarkable progress in solving nutritional problems as cited continually by the Global Nutrition Report 2016.

He said stunting which largely affects human productivity, he says has dropped from about 35% to 19% in recent statistics.

"Great strides have been made in reducing the level of undernutrition across the country" he said

Mr. Segbefia mentioned however that the Ministry recognises that "a significant number of our population for whom progress has not been fast or equal enough." 

Current statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO) also suggest over 150 million children under age five are stunted, with the majority of these children living in sub-Sahara Africa. 

For this reason, the Ministry and other stakeholders including the Ghana Health Service have put together the National Nutrition Policy to tackle these problems.

The policy aims at ensuring optimal nutrition of all people living in Ghana throughout their lifecycle.

Some interventions that will be put in place include instituting a six-month materiality leave, scaling up the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) initiatives and encouraging public-private partnerships for nutrition security.