WORLD VISION has unveiled a campaign to end child hunger. The “Enough” campaign pledges $3.4 billion (£2.78 billion) for projects in 67 countries to alleviate hunger and improve the nutrition of about 125 million children.
Figures from the UN last year showed that global hunger had begun to rise again, after falling for 40 years. “Hunger hotspots” have been identified, in Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Yemen; the DRC, Haiti, the Sahel region, Sudan, and Syria are listed as “countries of very high concern”.
Word Vision said that last year nearly 258 million people were in “crisis” or in higher levels of food insecurity, meaning that their lives or livelihoods were in danger. This is represents a rise from 193 million the previous year. More than 30 million children suffer from wasting: the most visible and severe form of malnutrition, which can be life-threatening if not treated.
Conflict and violence are held to be the main drivers of acute hunger, and conflicts in Ukraine and Sudan have worsened further since the UN figures emerged.
The $3.4 billion will be donated or given in the form of microfinance loans over the course of the next three years. Of the total, $1.2 billion will come from private sources, as well as $2.2 billion from institutional donors such as governments and UN agencies.
A recent poll by Ipsos, commissioned by World Vision, of families in 16 countries, showed that child malnutrition was not confined to lower-income countries (News, 27 October). Half of the parents asked said that they were worried about finding the money to feed their families; one third said that there was no food in their home; and two in ten said that their children had to go to bed hungry.
The chief executive of World Vision UK, Fola Komolafe, said that the campaign was called “Enough” because the world had enough food to support its whole population, with eight billion tonnes of food produced globally each year.
“The truth is that our food systems are catastrophically broken. A huge amount of food is thrown away every single day, while, at the same time, children starve and suffer due to lack of food and nutrition, which can lead to death. We hope and pray that, together, our ambition is to help end hunger and malnutrition for children everywhere. . . We pray that we reach every single one of them, to say “Enough is enough.”
World Vision is the World Food Programme’s largest partner in the delivery of food assistance, ensuring that it has structures and routes in place to get food to the most hungry children.
A spokesperson for the charity said: “The Enough campaign will work with all our supporters and partners, and leverage our expertise, by making children visible in global and national statistics around hunger and nutrition, to drive real change in the places where children are receiving food support — emergency food assistance programmes, school meals, and community health services — and lead global efforts to get more and better aid invested in ending child hunger and malnutrition.”
Lack of humanitarian-aid contributions this year have also hampered efforts to help: humanitarian-aid targets for nutrition and food security have so far raised less than one quarter of what is needed for this year.
The 2021 Global Nutrition Report estimated a $39- to $50-billion cost for reducing 3.7 million deaths of children under the age of five, and preventing stunting in 65 million children.