The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO), Mr. José Graziano da Silva has explained why a global
action is paramount on malnutrition, reports NaijaAgroNet.
He gave this explanation at the recently held United Nations
General Assembly in the New York city, noting that some 159 million children under
the age of five are stunted, which means they have a low height for their age.
“Another 50 million children in that age bracket are wasted
in other words, they have low weight compared to their height,” he said.
The FAO boss also pointed out that some 1.9 billion people
are overweight of whom 600 million are obese.
“And there is a gender dimension to this, too. Malnutrition
continues to disproportionately affect women and girls, who often forgo food
for male family members or lack the income to secure adequate nutrition for
themselves,” he said.
This estimate, NaijaAgroNet gathered, suggested that
maternal and child undernutrition alone cost up to 11 percent of Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), as malnutrition in early life often results in ill health in
adulthood.
Well-nourished children, inversely, are 33 percent more
likely to escape poverty as adults. This means that investing in nutrition has
significant potential to break endemic poverty cycles and boost economic
development by allowing people to live healthy, productive lives.
As with ICN2, stewardship of the Decade of Action lies with
FAO and WHO, who together will focus their efforts on two main objectives.
One is assisting governments in building national policies
and programs that advance nutrition. The other is to align the efforts of
existing global initiatives and social movements towards common goals.
To support concrete action on nutrition programs, both
agencies will further organize special meetings to strengthen countries'
technical capacities to tackle new nutrition challenges.
One example of this is a symposium on Sustainable Food
Systems for Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition to be held in Rome December
1-2.
NaijaAgroNet recalls that both agencies had agreed to put in
place a solid system for reporting and monitor achievements.
Remmy Nweke/ED, Ops
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Pix: Mr. José Graziano da Silva