Nutrition for Growth - Year of Action
Today, new research from the Standing Together for Nutrition Consortium was presented at the Nutrition for Growth: Year of Action virtual event hosted by the Governments of Canada and Bangladesh.
Dr Saskia OSendarp, Co-convenor of the consortium warned “If we don't act now, we run the risk that we lose an entire generation. For this generation of children that are being born now, there's no time to waste because we know that nutrition in early life, is determining their future. We must invest in ensuring access to healthy and nutritious diets, to ensure the continuation and scale up of essential nutrition and health services to mothers and children and to make sure social protection programs include nutrition.”
The Consortium report an:
- Increases in all forms of child undernutrition, with an estimated 168,000 additional deaths in children <5 between 2020-2022, an estimated 2.6 million additional stunted children <5 by 2022, and an estimated additional 9.3 million children <5 with wasting between 2020-2022.
- We can expect significant decreases in both domestic funding and ODA related to nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions as a result to COVID-19, which do not recover to pre-crisis levels until the end of this decade.
- The need to invest an additional $1.2 billion annually to mitigate the additional impacts of COVID-19 on child stunting, child wasting, and maternal anemia alone. This is over and above all currently existing financing.
The potential dramatic effects of the pandemic on health, wellbeing, and prosperity is expected to lead to a serious increase in cases of undernutrition in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs). Young children and their mothers are most severely affected. If we don’t act now we run a risk of losing a generation. Massive long-term negative consequences on individuals’ development and the prosperity of nations makes it imperative that we respond forcefully now to strengthen delivery of nutrition interventions. This research paper presents the evidence to support decision-making informed by data. It underlines the urgency of prioritising nutrition, not only for the benefit of this generation, but also for the health and wellbeing of future generations.
Before us, we have a year-long effort to mobilize policy and financing commitments, building on the legacy of past Nutrition for Growth efforts and culminating in the Tokyo Summit in late 2021. As Dr Lawrence Haddad, Co-convenor of STfN stated “with limited budgets we now need to be bold and creative and grow the movement for nutrition. The superyear of 2021 is the perfect time to form new powerful alliances with champions in the food system, climate, biodiversity and social protection communities. Strong nutrition outcomes help everyone to build forwards better in this COVID era.”
