Africa Must Invest $750m to Eliminate Malnutrition

African governments have to invest at least $750 million annually over the next decade in interventions to eliminate malnutrition across the continent, where 56 million under the age of four are chronically undernourished while 13 million are acutely undernourished, the African Development Bank has said.

It also requires an additional $1.8 billion annually from donors to effectively accelerate progress to improve nutrition as micronutrient deficiencies remain widespread while obesity is increasing.

Specifically, key interventions needed are increasing access to Vitamin A supplements; promoting of good infant and young child nutrition and hygiene practices.

This is in addition to increasing access to multiple micronutrient supplements during pregnancy and intermittent preventive treatment of malaria for pregnant women.

"Nutrition is not just a health and social development issue, nutrition is an investment that shapes economic growth for all African nations," said AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina at the annual meetings of the African Development Bank in Lusaka, Zambia, adding, "When the growth of our children is stunted today -- the growth of our economies will be stunted tomorrow. But when Africa's children are nourished and can grow, learn and earn to their full potential, we will be able to unleash the potential of the entire continent."

Increased investment is needed to achieve the global nutrition targets including a 40 per cent reduction in the number of children under five who are stunted and a 50 per cent reduction of anaemia in women of reproductive age.

This is in addition to increasing the rate of exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months to at least 50 per cent as well as reducing and maintaining childhood wasting to less than five per cent from eight per cent.

"One of the most critical steps we can take to achieve nutrition security is to transform the continent's agriculture sector, because it's not just about the amount of food we grow, it's also about the type of food that we eat," said Kofi Annan, the chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation.

BY BERNA NAMATA