press conference by unicef executive director to launch report on nutrition

Calling malnutrition a global epidemic this morning, Ann Veneman, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said that, in the present time of plenty, it was estimated that more than a quarter of all children under the age of 5 years were seriously underweight.

Speaking at a Headquarters press conference to launch Progress for Children –- a Report Card on Nutrition,she said that too many individuals, families, policymakers and leaders were unaware of nutrition’s vital importance and the seriousness of under-nutrition around the world.  One underweight and undernourished child was an individual tragedy, but multiplied by tens of millions, under-nutrition became a global threat to societies and economies.

Accompanied by Catherine Bertini, Chair of the United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition, she said that about 146 million children in developing countries, or 27 per cent, were seriously underweight while global rates had fallen only 5 percentage points since 1990.  At the current pace and with less than a decade left to fulfil the promise of halving the proportion of undernourished children by 2015, that Millennium Development Goal would not be met.

Explaining the use of underweight as an indicator, she said it was one of the most visible and easily measured attributes of malnutrition, and it correlated strongly with disease and premature death.  Clearly the foundation on which all human progress was built, malnutrition profoundly affected life at every stage of development, starting even before a child was born.  It helped determine how healthy that child would be, how fast she would grow, how easily she would resist diseases, how well she would learn at school and whether her own children would reach their full potential.

It was estimated that persistent under-nourishment contributed to at least 5.6 million under-5 child deaths every year, she said.  But while millions of children were eating enough to fend off hunger, they were missing critical vitamins and minerals.  “Something as simple as a lack of iodine in diets is the leading cause of preventable brain damage worldwide and can lower the average IQ in iodine-deficient regions by up to 13 points”, she added, noting that vitamin A deficiency could make a child significantly more likely to die from a common childhood disease like measles.  “Every year iron deficiency means that tens of thousands of pregnant women will not live to see their children born.”

Citing the report’s detailed breakdown of gains against malnutrition by country and region, she said that only two out of seven developing-country regions were making significant progress towards reaching the Millennium Goal target.  The worst crisis was in South Asia, where almost one in two under-5 children (or 46 per cent) was underweight.  In India alone, 7.8 million babies were born underweight every year.

Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole had been largely stagnating with 28 per cent of its children underweight, she continued.  Children in that region lived in an almost constant state of emergency fuelled by war, famine and other crises, while HIV/AIDS was putting additional strain on communities already struggling to find adequate food and leaving children alone and vulnerable.

Conflict had put some countries into a sharp nutritional decline, she said, noting that the Sudan had higher rates of proportion of underweight children now than 15 years ago.  The rates for other individual countries included 48 per cent for Nepal and Bangladesh; 47 per cent in India and Ethiopia; 46 per cent in Yemen and Timor-Leste; and 40 per cent in the Niger.  The highest rate in the Latin American and the Caribbean region was 23 per cent in Guatemala.  The highest rate in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was 14 per cent in Albania, compared to 2 per cent in the United States.

However, there were also bright spots in every region, including particularly good news from China, she said.  With the highest population on earth, that country had already met the Millennium Goal target 10 years ahead of schedule.  The proportion of underweight children in China had dropped from 19 per cent in 1990 to 8 per cent in 2002 thanks in part to a strong Government commitment to make nutrition a priority.

Emphasizing that the malnutrition epidemic could not be blamed on food shortage alone, she said the figures cited reflected broken health and education systems, poor governance and corruption, as well as a widespread failure to provide such basic services as clean water and sanitation.  With 2.6 billion people living without simple toilets, diarrhoea had become one of the world’s leading causes of child deaths and malnutrition.  Data in the report also showed the importance of keeping mothers healthy and educated, especially in the developing world, where millions of women and girls came into pregnancy too young and too often.  Far too many of them were malnourished themselves, and very few spent their teenage years in school, all of which impaired their ability to bear, raise and care for healthy children.

“With so much at stake we are long overdue for a different approach to malnutrition”, she said, adding that food aid alone was not enough.  “Reversing the trends in this report means taking a holistic approach to what keeps children healthy and developing properly.”  That included healthy mothers during pregnancy, better education, effective disease control and policies that safeguarded food access even in times of crises.  “The report stresses a focus on protecting children from conception to age 2.  If a child falls behind in this critical development stage, he or she might never catch up.”

Ms. Bertini said that the Millennium Development Goals urged Governments to put more emphasis on adequate nutrition programmes and adequate support for children and people throughout the world so that they could have access to adequate nutrition, food, clean water, reasonable health-care facilities, and so much more that was so critically important.  What the United Nations system could do was to highlight the importance of nutrition in reaching all other development goals throughout the world.  In the last six months the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), World Food Programme (WFP) all had new initiatives relating to strong programmes to support nutrition within the context of their work worldwide.

Asked what UNICEF was doing now in terms of money, given all the competing voices and initiatives, Ms. Veneman said that, while there was always a need for more money, one of the things that the report highlighted was not how much money was needed, but the critical importance of recognizing nutrition as such a key part of everything done on behalf of children.  For example, the correlation between education, nutrition and healthy babies revealed the highest prevalence of malnutrition in areas where education rates were lowest.  There was also a key link between the way in which women were treated and the malnutrition rates seen today.  In addition, without enough food, people with HIV and AIDS could not absorb antiretroviral drugs.  Similarly, an undernourished child was much more likely to die from malaria.

Ms. Bertini added that, while money was always important if put in the right places, policymakers must understand that good nutrition could be learned.  While a mother must have enough food in order to produce enough milk, she must also know the importance of breastfeeding, which was an education issue.

Noting that the report listed Yemen as having a worse underweight problem than “pretty well every country in the whole of Africa”, another correspondent asked why nothing was ever heard about that country’s nutrition crisis.

Ms. Veneman responded by calling on Rainer Gross, Chief of the Nutrition Section in UNICEF’s Programme Division, who said there was a specific situation of civil unrest in that country, as well as a political problem.  Yemen was a good example of the need for the right setting in all dimensions to guarantee the people’s medical and nutritional status.  It was also an example of a “silent crisis”.

The Executive Director added that some under-nutrition issues were not simply about a country not having enough food.  In India, a food exporter with the world’s second highest economic growth rate, 47 per cent of under-5 children were underweight.  The problem was much more about practices, culture, under-education and the treatment of women generally.  India was a culture that practised sex-selection, resulting in a disproportionate number of men to women, and in which women were undervalued.  Such cultural issues would have a strong correlation with the overall impact and what the statistics showed.

Another journalist asked whether UNICEF had raised the question of baby formula, which was one of the factors blamed for malnutrition in Iraq.

Tessa M. Wardlaw, Senior Programme Officer for Strategic Information in UNICEF’s Policy and Planning Division said the Fund had not only been raising the alarm about that, but also trying to raise resources for under-5 children and their mothers, who were particularly malnourished.  Iraq had the dual problem of under- and over-nutrition, involving people who did not eat the right foods.  That was a growing problem, not only in Iraq, but also around the world.

Ms. Veneman added that the United States had an epidemic of overweight and obesity, which highlighted once again the importance of proper nutrition.  It was essential to help educate people on the need for fruits and vegetables, whole grains, protein and an overall balanced diet.  Lack of physical activity and exercise was also a big problem in the United States.

Citing Ghana’s outstanding figures, a journalist asked whether they resulted from a specific Government programme or UNICEF initiative.

In response, Mr. Gross said UNICEF was supporting a strong child-survival programme in Ghana, of which breastfeeding support was an important part.  Ghana was a positive role model, sending a strong message about what could be achieved despite poverty and environmental problems.

Ms. Veneman said that a 20 per cent reduction in child mortality had been achieved in West African countries, including Ghana, as a result of an integrated community-based health-care approach that included the provision of immunizations, vitamin supplementation and breastfeeding training.  The UNICEF was further analysing and scaling up those results.

Asked whether it was too late for the Middle East and North Africa region to attain the Millennium Development Goals, she said it was probably not too late, but a sense of urgency was needed with regard to all the Goals.  Children were at the heart of the Millennium Development Goals because virtually every one of them impacted their well-being in one way or another.

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For information media • not an official record