Scale-up action to combat child malnutrition in Africa’s Sahel |
The West and Central African Nutrition Working Group fears at least 900,000 young lives could be at risk across Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal.
The number of children suffering from acute malnutrition globally has never been this high, they said, with a 27% increase expected this year from 2021, marking the fifth consecutive year of reaching a record high. green.
The Working Group brings together United Nations agencies such as the United Nations Children’s Fund, (UNICEF), World food program (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO), and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including Action Against Hunger (ACF), Care and Save the Children.
‘Extraordinary business’ approach
Of them general notes advocates a paradigm shift to both urgently respond to immediate needs and address the root causes of malnutrition.
“As conflict, insecurity, socio-economic crises and recurrent extreme climate events in the region continue to worsen and exacerbate the nutritional status of children, we need to transform to ‘extraordinary business’ to address children’s needs in a sustainable way,”speakMarie-Pierre Poirier, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa.
“While treatment remains essential to save the lives of the worst affected children, we must change the paradigm and focus on broad-based interventions to prevent undernutrition, especially in the hardest hit locations. The time has come to resolve and urgently address the root causes of child malnutrition in the region.”
Addressing the basics
The partners are calling for a multisectoral approach to address many of the underlying factors including widespread food insecurity; inadequate diet and care of infants and young children; poor maternal nutrition, high morbidity rate in children; inadequate access to water, sanitation and health services; as well as gender and other social norms.
They add that a particular focus on adolescent girls is key to breaking the intergenerational cycle of malnutrition.
The working group says a total of $93.4 million is needed to prevent wasting in children, pregnant and lactating mothers, based on data from nine countries.
However, there is a $56.2 million funding gap, including $26.3 million to cover needs during the June-September lean season.
To treat malnutrition, the shortfall is $77.5 million, of which $42 million is needed to treat severe malnutrition, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition.
Impact of the war in Ukraine
At the same time, there is a need for flexible and long-term investments in nutrition to sustainably address financial issues, including on the part of Governments.
“And now the Ukraine crisis is leading to food price inflation, which increases the pressure on the population already hard hit by the crisis: serious food and nutritional insecurity is approaching. if we don’t act now on all the hot spots.” Mamadou Diop, Regional Representative of ACF said.
Currently, only 21% of children aged 6-23 months are supplemented with the minimum number of food groups for good growth.
As the demand for supply is likely to increase and for the cost of providing food and nutrition, the partners have called foridentify local solutionssuch as partnerships with women’s cooperatives, youth engagement for better community participation, and public-private initiatives.
They said the focus must be on young children, adolescent girls and pregnant and lactating women.