Global Nutrition Experts Meet in London to Progress Strategies for Reducing Infant Deaths and Stunting from Malnutrition
London: More than 120 global experts in nutrition, academics, and business leaders will meet in London at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN)’s Symposium “Making a difference in the first 1000 days to improve the lives of children and women: Advancing nutrition through innovation and new delivery models”.
Today, poor nutrition is the underlying cause of 45% of all deaths of children under the age of five. The event has been convened to explore models for advancing child nutrition including promoting exclusive breastfeeding until six months, using fortified complementary foods alongside breastfeeding for children over six months of age through to age two and empowering women to make better nutritional choices for their families.
Tens of millions of infants and children are highly vulnerable to chronic malnutrition despite progress made in recent decades. Current estimates suggest that 161 million children under 5 are stunted – failing to grow to their full height - and 51 million are wasted as a result of hunger and malnutrition. Over three million child deaths each year can be attributed to malnutrition. Good nutrition in the first 1000 days from conception to the age of two is crucial to minimising child deaths, enabling children to avoid and survive disease, and helping children to reach their full potential.
GAIN supports women to exclusively breast feed for the first six months of their child’s life, followed by continued breastfeeding through age 24 months with the introduction of appropriate, adequately nutritious complementary foods from 6 months of age.
There is, however, an emerging recognition that locally available, home-prepared complementary foods cannot always fulfill the nutritional requirements of infants and young children particularly among low-income families. In such instances, there is a role for using nutrition rich complementary foods and micro-nutrient supplements to ensure that children between six months to two years receive a nutritious and healthy diet.
At the London Symposium GAIN will share its learnings from a portfolio of country programmes carried out over the past seven years, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. These projects have explored the potential of market-based models for complementary foods or home-fortification in combination with health sector interventions promoting breast feeding and better nutritional practices, and empowering women to make better nutritional choices. Projects highlighted will include:
GAIN will be publishing two working papers to coincide with the Symposium, which detail lessons learned from the past seven years.
Key speakers at the Symposium include Marc Van Ameringen, Executive Director, GAIN, Marie Konaté, founder of PKL, Shawn Baker, from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Francesco Branca, from WHO, Valerie Curtis from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Liz Ditchburn from DFID and Martin Bloem from the World Food Programme.
Copies of GAIN’s working papers are available to download from today, and can be found here: http://www.gainhealth.org/knowledge-centre/10-women-rural-rajasthan-improving-nutrition-thousands/
Today, poor nutrition is the underlying cause of 45% of all deaths of children under the age of five. The event has been convened to explore models for advancing child nutrition including promoting exclusive breastfeeding until six months, using fortified complementary foods alongside breastfeeding for children over six months of age through to age two and empowering women to make better nutritional choices for their families.
Tens of millions of infants and children are highly vulnerable to chronic malnutrition despite progress made in recent decades. Current estimates suggest that 161 million children under 5 are stunted – failing to grow to their full height - and 51 million are wasted as a result of hunger and malnutrition. Over three million child deaths each year can be attributed to malnutrition. Good nutrition in the first 1000 days from conception to the age of two is crucial to minimising child deaths, enabling children to avoid and survive disease, and helping children to reach their full potential.
GAIN supports women to exclusively breast feed for the first six months of their child’s life, followed by continued breastfeeding through age 24 months with the introduction of appropriate, adequately nutritious complementary foods from 6 months of age.
There is, however, an emerging recognition that locally available, home-prepared complementary foods cannot always fulfill the nutritional requirements of infants and young children particularly among low-income families. In such instances, there is a role for using nutrition rich complementary foods and micro-nutrient supplements to ensure that children between six months to two years receive a nutritious and healthy diet.
At the London Symposium GAIN will share its learnings from a portfolio of country programmes carried out over the past seven years, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. These projects have explored the potential of market-based models for complementary foods or home-fortification in combination with health sector interventions promoting breast feeding and better nutritional practices, and empowering women to make better nutritional choices. Projects highlighted will include:
- In Vietnam, GAIN has partnered with the Government’s National Institute of Nutrition in an innovative and pioneering pilot programme to reduce micronutrient deficiencies, which contribute to stunting in one in four children and zinc deficiency rates as high as 70% in children under five year of age. The project represented the first time anywhere that a government has manufactured its own micronutrient powders, which were formulated to align with WHO standards. These were then distributed through Vietnamese health centres - another first for the country.
- In Cote D’Ivoire, GAIN has provided technical support and financing to Protein Kissée-La (PKL), a small to medium enterprise selling affordable fortified soya based cereals sold in pharmacies, supermarkets and neighbourhood shops in poorer neighbourhoods. With GAIN’s assistance, PKL has improved the quality of its product and increased the effectiveness of its marketing and promotional work.
- In rural Rajasthan, GAIN, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Government of India set up a factory for producing supplementary food that is distributed through government-supported community centres. The factory is owned and operated by 10 local women and delivers 30 metric tons of a flour enriched with vitamins and minerals daily to 6,000 children and nearly 3,000 pregnant or lactating women.
GAIN will be publishing two working papers to coincide with the Symposium, which detail lessons learned from the past seven years.
Key speakers at the Symposium include Marc Van Ameringen, Executive Director, GAIN, Marie Konaté, founder of PKL, Shawn Baker, from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Francesco Branca, from WHO, Valerie Curtis from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Liz Ditchburn from DFID and Martin Bloem from the World Food Programme.
Copies of GAIN’s working papers are available to download from today, and can be found here: http://www.gainhealth.org/knowledge-centre/10-women-rural-rajasthan-improving-nutrition-thousands/
