Acute malnutrition threatens lives of millions of vulnerable children, UN warns

Conflicts, climate shocks, ongoing impacts of Covid-19 and the rising cost of living leave growing numbers of children with acute malnutrition in the world. Meanwhile, key health, nutrition and other vital services are becoming less accessible.

The alert is from United Nations (UN) agencies that call for urgent action to protect the most vulnerable children in the 15 countries hardest hit by an unprecedented food and nutrition crisis.

Currently, more than 30 million children in the 15 most affected countries suffer from wasting – or acute malnutrition – and 8 million of these children are severely wasted, the deadliest form of malnutrition.

Children with acute malnutrition have weakened immune systems and are at greater risk of dying from common childhood illnesses. Those who survive may face lifelong growth and development challenges. The UN group warns that this is a major threat to children’s lives and their long-term health and development, whose impacts are felt by individuals, their communities and their countries.

In response, five UN agencies – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), the Food Program (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) – are calling for accelerated progress on the Global Plan of Action on Child Wasting.

The measure aims to prevent, detect and treat acute malnutrition among children in the most affected countries, which are Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan South, Sudan and Yemen.

The Global Action Plan addresses the need for a multisectoral approach and highlights priority actions on maternal and child nutrition through food, health, water and sanitation systems, and social protection.

In response to growing needs, UN agencies have identified five priority actions that will be effective in combating acute malnutrition in countries affected by conflict and natural disasters and in humanitarian emergencies. Scaling up these actions as a coordinated package will be critical to preventing and treating acute malnutrition in children and avoiding a tragic loss of life, the agencies argue.

UN agencies call for decisive and timely action to prevent this crisis from becoming a tragedy for the world’s most vulnerable children. All agencies call for increased investment in support of a coordinated UN response to meet the unprecedented needs of this growing crisis.

“This situation is likely to further deteriorate in 2023,” said Qu Dongyu, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “We must ensure the availability and access to healthy diets for young children, pregnant and breastfeeding women. We need urgent action now to save lives and tackle the root causes of acute malnutrition, working together across all sectors.”

“The UN system is responding as one to this crisis and the UN Global Plan of Action on Child Wasting is our joint effort to prevent, detect and treat wasting globally. At UNHCR, we are working hard to improve analysis and targeting to ensure we reach the children who are most at risk, including internally displaced people and refugee populations,” said Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

“Today’s cascading crises are leading to the loss of millions of children and making access to essential services more difficult. Wasting is painful for the child and in severe cases can lead to death or cause permanent damage to the child’s growth and development. We can and must reverse this nutritional crisis through proven solutions to prevent, detect and treat childhood wasting early,” said Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF.

The executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), David Beasley, said that more than 30 million children suffer from acute malnutrition in the 15 most affected countries.

“We must act now and we must act together. It is critical that we collaborate to strengthen social safety nets and food assistance to ensure Nutritious Specialty Foods are available to women and children who need them most,” said Beasley.

“The global food crisis is also a health crisis and a vicious cycle: malnutrition leads to disease, and disease leads to malnutrition,” said Tedros Adhanom, WHO Director-General. “Urgent support is needed now in the most affected countries to protect the lives and health of children, including ensuring critical access to healthy food and nutrition services, especially for women and children.”