Malnutrition and hunger are soaring across the world, leading to hundreds of millions of people suffering and posing a major threat to global security. Access to good nutrition is foundational to development. Without it, children cannot reach their full potential, physically or cognitively. As a result, economies are undermined and less productive, poverty is entrenched and instability spreads.
Women and girls are disproportionately impacted. One billion adolescent girls and women worldwide are suffering from malnutrition because they typically eat last and least. This has a generational impact as malnutrition passes from mother to child. Improving maternal nutrition is critical to arresting global malnutrition and building a healthier and more secure world.
As former development ministers from across the political divides, we have come together on World Hunger Day today to urge leaders here in the UK and worldwide to make maternal and child nutrition a priority.
The Child Nutrition Fund, pioneered by the UK government, presents a way to target, treat and prevent malnutrition in partnership with high-burden countries, by leveraging money from philanthropies and mobilising domestic resources. The fund is a vehicle to ensure women can access antenatal multiple micronutrient supplements, one of the most cost-effective health treatments available. They dramatically improve life chances by reducing birth complications, improving newborn health and ensuring developing babies receive the nutrients they need. Individuals, communities and countries benefit for decades.
If leaders are serious about setting a path to a stable world where people can survive and prosper where they live, improving maternal nutrition would be a good place to start.
Valerie Amos Secretary of state for international development, May-October 2003; parliamentary undersecretary, FCO, June 2001-May 2003 (Labour), Lynne Featherstone Parliamentary undersecretary, Department for International Development, September 2012-November 2014 (Liberal Democrat), Liz Sugg Parliamentary undersecretary, Department for International Development / FCDO, April 2019-November 2020 (Conservative)
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