A group of United Nations agencies have joined forces to call for «urgent» international action to protect the most vulnerable children in 15 countries, as more than 30 million children suffer from acute malnutrition and, for eight million of them, the situation is particularly dire.
Food insecurity has increased due to the succession of crises in recent years, from conflicts to climate tragedies, from the HIV/AIDS pandemic to the rising cost of living, with serious consequences for the populations of Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen.
The director general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Qu Dongyu, has warned that «the situation is likely to deteriorate further by 2023», so emergency measures are needed to «save lives» and «tackle the underlying causes of acute malnutrition».
The UN advocates progress in food but also in water, health, social protection and sanitation, within a set of priorities set out in a joint action plan that requires more investment, as well as that it arrives as soon as possible. The executive director of the World Food Program, David Beasley, has expressed in this sense: «We must act now and we must act together».
For her part, the executive director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Catherine Russell, pointed out that «the cascade of crises» has complicated the feeding of millions of children and «has made it more difficult for them to access basic services».
«Acute malnutrition is painful for a child and, in some cases, can lead to death or permanent damage to growth and development. We can and must reverse this nutrition crisis through proven solutions to prevent, detect and treat acute malnutrition early,» he added.
The director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stressed that «the global food crisis is also a health crisis», as well as «a vicious circle» in which both fronts feed back on each other. «Malnutrition leads to disease and disease leads to malnutrition,» he explained.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
