Nearly 200m children in poor countries have stunted growth because of insufficient nutrition. The head of UN food agency called on the world to join him in a day of fasting ahead of the summit to highlight the plight of 1billion hungry people.
More than 90% of those children live in Africa and Asia, and more than a third of all deaths in that age group are linked to under nutrition - UNICEF said.
While progress has been made in Asia - ratio of stunted growth dropped from 44% in 1990 to 30% last year- there has been little success in Africa. There, the rate of stunted growth was about 38% in 1990 and last year, the rate was about 34%.
South Asia is a particular hot spot for the problem, with just Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan accounting for 83M hungry children under five. The UN children's agency called for more strategies like Vit A supplementation and breast-feeding to be rolled out more widely. That could cut the death rate in kids by up to 15%. But not everyone agreed considering the progress UNICEF's report points to in improving nutrition is almost certainly a result of economic growth and not UN strategies.
Be aware, the Rome-based FAO announced earlier this year that hunger now affects a record 1.02Billion globally or 1 in 6 people with the financial meltdown, high food prices, drought and war blamed. Please read EATING WITH A CONSCIENCE to mitigate global warming and stop global hunger.
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