David del Campo is Director of International Cooperation and Humanitarian Action at Save the Children.
Meanwhile, progress is being made in reducing delayed growth in children. The number of children with delayed growth dropped from 165.2 million in 2012 to 150.8 million in 2017, a reduction of 9%. Even so, today 22% of children under 5 suffer from delayed growth, which is directly linked to nutrition.
Both of these macro-level situations serve as a reminder that hunger, food insecurity and the various forms of malnutrition must remain top priorities on the international agenda. At Save the Children all our strategies and efforts are focused on those 170 million children unable to realize their full potential due to a lack of proper, sustainable and permanent nutrition. Poor nutrition makes an infant far more susceptible to disease and has a direct impact on their education and life chances.
Each year 2.6 million boys and girls die due to causes directly linked to malnutrition and, sadly, this has been the case for some time. Half of these deaths are children under five. Our strategy addresses the two most important areas for those children who survive malnutrition: health and survival, and access to education and development.
Each year 1.8 million children die from pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria. Death due to all three of these illnesses is directly linked to nutrition. For any given illness, a well-nourished child is at least 60% more likely to survive than a child who is malnourished. Proper nourishment greatly increases the chances of surviving malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia as the combination of preventative and curative measures such as antibiotics, oral-hydration solutions and anti-malarial medication could prevent almost two thirds of these deaths.
Within this framework, Save the Children has designed our strategy until 2030, which prioritizes our work during the first thousand days of life. After one hundred years in the field, we know that concentrating all our efforts on nutrition during the first days of life, from the beginning of the pregnancy until the child’s second birthday, is crucial. This is the most critical period because it is when the brain, immune system and the body grow fastest. We know that any negative impact during this time is irreversible, which is why our work, carried out by workers, volunteers and local health centers, focuses on interventions and programs designed for mothers and young babies.
The aim of our programs is to ensure that pregnant women and young children have access to a varied diet and that they adopt good food practices which help to prevent infectious disease.
To achieve this, we: work to improve the diet and nutrition of mothers both before and during pregnancy; encourage good breastfeeding practices, especially during the first six months of life; offer nutritional supplements to babies between six- and twenty-four-months old and vitamin A and Zinc to the youngest children. In the same way, access to nuts represents a huge opportunity, not only in prevention but also in the treatment of malnutrition. They contain vegetable-proteins which would be impossible to obtain in many poor countries or countries affected by conflict. In addition to this, nuts contain minerals such as potassium, calcium, phosphorus, iron and magnesium. Combining nuts or products derived from nuts can provide an effective tool in the prevention of severe acute malnutrition, such as in the case of treatment with Plumpy Nut. The main ingredients of Plumpy Nut are peanut butter, powdered milk and vegetable oil, along with several vitamins and essential minerals. It is one of the most widely used treatments in the world today in the area of humanitarian aid and emergencies because, as well as its high protein content, it has a two-year shelf life and can be administered by any adult, removing the complications involved in preparing formulas which must be dissolved in water.
There is no doubt that nuts have much to offer in most situations of hunger and malnutrition. Given that peanut butter has saved thousands of lives over the last fifteen years, there is nothing to stop other types of nuts, in many cases produced in great volumes in countries which are themselves suffering from hunger and malnutrition, becoming part of a new initiative to reduce mortality.
And so, at Save the Children we believe that more innovation and investigation is necessary. The situation demands more space for both public and private collaboration. It demands more ambition and courage when we are faced with the figures for hunger and malnutrition in the world, knowing that we have the means and capabilities to significantly reduce them over the next fifteen years. The role of nuts as an important source of protein has not been given the consideration it deserves. It is our hope that, during their upcoming congress in Boca Raton in 2019, the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council will bear this in mind and open the door to more collaboration and development with humanitarian organizations such as Save the Children.
Source: FAO 2018
