The report warns that millions of children under the age of 5 have difficulty accessing the diverse and nutritious diets needed for growth and development, and that food prices and living costs have reached record highs. continent as countries continue to recover from the impact of the epidemic. COVID-19 pandemic.
UNICEF Nutrition expert, Harriet Torlesse – who is also the report’s lead author – said one in four children globally are surviving on extremely poor diets, consuming only two or less main food groups.
“So for a child in Afghanistan, for example, it’s just a little bread or perhaps milk for the whole dayand almost certainly no vegetables, no fruits and no good sources of protein,” she said. UN News before launch time. “And this is very worrying because these children cannot survive on such a poor diet.”
Millions of people are affected worldwide
The report found that 65% of the 181 million children worldwide in food poverty reside in 20 countries – about 64 million in South Asia and 59 million in sub-Saharan Africa.
Furthermore, nearly half of the cases involved households with prominent income poverty.
However, many other factors contribute to this crisis including, “the food system fails to provide children with nutritious, safe and accessible options, families cannot afford food nutrition and parents’ inability to adopt and maintain positive child-rearing practices”.
‘Terrible impact’ of Gaza conflict
More than half of children in Somalia suffer from poverty because of conflict and natural disasters.
Similarly in Gaza, nine out of 10 children are facing high levels of food poverty as fighting continues.
The report said: “This is evidence of the devastating impact that conflict and restrictions are having on families’ ability to meet children’s food needs – and the speed at which children are being put at risk. risk of life-threatening malnutrition.
However, the organization notes that other countries facing their own crises, such as Burkina Faso, have significantly reduced levels of child food poverty. Burkina Faso has halved the number of infections there.
“It shows that with the right kind of action, countries can make progress, including low-income countries,” Ms. Torlesse said. “[These countries] All have made deliberate efforts to improve the local supply of nutritious foods, be it beans, vegetables or poultry.”
Complain to governments
UNICEF calls for action to make it easier for young children to access nutritious food, activate social protection systems to tackle income poverty and leverage health systems to deliver services Essential nutrition to support children.
“UNICEF is calling on all government humanitarian and development partners to act now to prioritize actions to end child food poverty,” Ms. Torlesse said. “We must make eradicating food poverty among children a policy imperative, especially to achieve the sustainable development goals on malnutrition.”
She said it was important that the health system be strengthened to be able to advise and support families on how to raise their children.
“There is no reason why children should grow up in child food poverty,” Ms. Torlesse said. “Not when we know the consequences for a child’s ability to grow and develop, and especially when we have solutions and we know what works.”
