Five United Nations agencies have issued an urgent call for action to protect millions of malnourished children in the 15 countries hardest hit by the unprecedented food and nutrition crisis. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 30 million children under the age of five are suffering from wasting, or acute malnutrition, due to a combination of factors such as conflict, climate shocks, the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and rising living costs.
Children with this condition have weakened immune systems and are at higher risk of dying from common childhood diseases. Among them, eight million are severely wasted – the deadliest form of undernutrition – meaning they are 12 times more likely to die than children who are well-nourished. The UN agencies warned that the situation is likely to deteriorate even further this year, and urged the international community to accelerate progress on the Global Action Plan on Child Wasting in order to prevent the growing crisis from becoming a tragedy.
The Global Action Plan aims to prevent, detect and treat acute malnutrition among children in the countries worst affected by the cascading crisis: Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen. The plan calls for a multi-sectoral approach, and highlights priority actions through maternal and child nutrition policy shifts, aimed at food, health, water and sanitation, and social protection systems.