Armed conflicts, the effects of climate change and the pandemic, the rising cost of living are causing an unprecedented food crisis which has already led more than 30 million children to acute malnutrition, 8 of which are severe.
This is the alarm raised in a joint note by various United Nations agencies: FAO, UNHCR, Unicef, WHO, World Food Programme.
"This situation is likely to get even worse in 2023.
We need to ensure the accessibility of healthy food for young children, girls and pregnant and breastfeeding women," said FAO CEO QU Dongyu.
The alarm concerns mainly fifteen countries: Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen.
What are unfolding today, says Unicef Executive Director Catherine Russell, are "cascading crises" that "are leaving millions of children malnourished and have made it more difficult for them to access essential services. Undernutrition is painful for the child and, in the most serious cases, can lead to death or permanent damage to growth and development".
For this reason, the agencies are asking for the implementation of the Global Action Plan on Child Wasting to be accelerated: they are needed "
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/E3I6SSZZQ6W6BXIAXV5VG36JCY.jpg)
