Conflict threatens global nutrition progress, new report warns
Major progress in tackling child undernutrition in some of the world’s toughest countries is under threat as military and security funding takes precedence, a new report from aid agency World Vision warns today.
The number of children under five who die every year has nearly halved since 1990. Yet, as world leaders prepare to gather in London for the Nutrition for Growth Summit this weekend, World Vision’s Fragile but not Helpless report finds that this progress is under threat. Countries marred by conflict or fragility have some of the highest rates of acute and chronic undernutrition in the world, in Africa alone it is on average 50 per cent higher in fragile countries than in more stable ones.
Andrew Hassett, Global Campaigns Director, World Vision International said: “Striving for peace is vital – but that shouldn’t mean pooling all our resources into security and sidelining basic needs like nutrition.
“Getting the right nutrients in a child’s first 1,000 days has lifelong implications, influencing their health, how well they will do at school, their job prospects, and in the case of women, their ability to have healthy children. Getting it right isn’t rocket science and our report shows how it can be done. What we know for sure it needs is consistent funding and political will.
“Undernutrition kills many more children than conflict. We ignore this at children’s peril – and we urge governments and donors to channel their funds and efforts accordingly.”
Though in many cases child undernutrition is well above acceptable thresholds, nearly two thirds of fragile and conflict-affected states have not joined up to the global movement to tackle nutrition, known as Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN).
Undernutrition contributes to the deaths of more than two million children every year. Globally, 165 million children, or one in four of all children under five, are stunted through undernutrition; chronically undernourished and at risk of long-lasting damage to their cognitive and physical development.
World Vision is asking donor countries to:
- Explicitly encourage and support fragile and conflict-affected states to join the Scaling Up Nutrition movement.
- Incentivise change by committing to provide funding and technical support to fragile and conflict-affected states that develop costed national action plans to tackle undernutrition.
- Increase long-term development funding to the most fragile areas, and incentivise state-building and improved ministry coordination.
- Prioritise free access to quality essential healthcare, give support to small-holder farmers, and help to improve governance in fragile and conflict-affected states.
Read the full technical report here.
