By Glen Tarman, international advocacy director at Action Against Hunger
Action Against Hunger welcomes new UN decade that places nutrition at the heart of sustainable development
The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed a UN Decade of Action on Nutrition, paving the way for tackling child hunger and ending all forms of malnutrition once and for all.
“We welcome the declaration of a decade for nutrition which we and other civil society organisations committed to at the second International Conference on Nutrition in Rome in 2014,” said Glen Tarman, Action Against Hunger’s International Advocacy Director. “We applaud the efforts of governments like Brazil in taking this to full approval at the United Nations General Assembly.”
The proclamation of a ten-year special effort is the latest milestone on the journey towards a world free from child hunger and child malnutrition. “For the first time in history, we have a global commitment, agreed by every country in the world in 2015, to eliminate malnutrition by 2030. But achieving this goal – and ensuring every child has the best start to life – will require significant financial and policy commitments from countries all over the world. Now we have a decade to align and make sure the world gets on track fast.”
Recent progress including the framework of action agreed at the International Conference on Nutrition in 2014, the World Health Organisation’s global nutrition targets and the Sustainable Development Goals agreed by world leaders at the sustainable development summit in 2015 provide a solid basis for urgent action to end malnutrition, particularly in children under five.
Making the decade a success from year one in tackling child hunger
“This year’s Nutrition for Growth summit taking place in Rio on the eve of the summer Olympics is the next big opportunity for world leaders to inject much needed funds to drive the world towards an end to malnutrition and child hunger within a generation and make the decade a success from year one.”
Citizens and civil society will need to keep up sustained pressure to hold governments accountable on their promises and make the ground-breaking progress needed to provide children with a life free from life-threatening hunger and malnutrition.
“Nutrition continues to rise as a global issue, but we must all keep pushing policy makers at national level and internationally to put the right mix of policies and resources in place.”
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