“Stunting can kill opportunities in life for a child and kill opportunities for development of a nation,” said the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Anthony Lake. “Our evidence of the progress that is being achieved shows that now is the time to accelerate it.”

One in four of all children less than five years of age is stunted because of chronic under-nutrition in crucial periods of growth. The damage done to a child’s body and brain by stunting is irreversible. It drags down performance at school and later at work, and puts children at a higher risk of dying from infectious diseases.

The UNICEF report, ‘Improving Child Nutrition: The achievable imperative for global progress’ notes that a key to success against stunting is focusing attention on pregnancy and the first two years of a child’s life.

An estimated 80 per cent of the world’s stunted children live in just 14 countries. The report highlights successes in scaling up nutrition and improving policies in 11 countries: Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nepal, Peru, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, the United Republic of Tanzania and Viet Nam.

Stunting is reduced through a series of simple and proven steps such as improving women’s nutrition, early and exclusive breastfeeding, providing additional vitamins and minerals as well as appropriate food – especially in pregnancy and the first two years of a child’s life.

In the Maharashtra state in India, the percentage of stunted children dropped from 39 per cent in 2005 to 23 per cent in 2012 largely because of support to frontline workers who focus on improving child nutrition.

In Peru, stunting fell by a third between 2006 and 2011 following an initiative that lobbied political candidates to sign a commitment to reduce stunting in children under five by five per cent over the span of five years and to lessen inequities between urban and rural areas.

Ethiopia cut stunting from 57 per cent to 44 per cent between 2000 and 2011 by implementing a national nutrition programme, providing a safety net in the poorest areas and boosting nutrition assistance through communities.

The report says that existing solutions and the work of new partnerships represent an unprecedented opportunity to address child under-nutrition through countries accelerating progress through national projects coordinated with donor support and measurable targets.

“Sharing power with women is a shortcut to reducing hunger and malnutrition, and is the single most effective step to realizing the right to food,” the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“Family agriculture has become gradually feminized, with men frequently moving away from the farm in search of work. Yet the women who increasingly face the burden of sustaining farms and families are too often denied the tools to thrive and improve their situation – on and off the farm.”

While De Schutter welcomed initiatives to empower women such as quotas in Indian public worker schemes, he warned that there are multiple barriers to female participation in society which need to be addressed.

“Women will not benefit from female quotas in work schemes if no provision is made for childcare services,” he said. “Individual measures will not suffice – gender roles and responsibilities must be challenged holistically and systematically.”

De Schutter said one of the measures that must be implemented immediately is the removal of all discriminatory laws and practices that prevent women from accessing farming resources such as land, inputs and credit.

He also called for women to be relieved of the burdens of care responsibilities in the home through the provision of adequate public services such as childcare, running water and electricity. Taking care of children and fetching water can amount to the equivalent of 15 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in middle-income countries, and as much as 35 per cent in low-income countries, he said.

The right to education is also vital, De Schutter said, as data shows that from 1970-1995 as much as 55 per cent of the reduction in hunger can be attributed to improvements in women’s situation in society.

“If women are allowed to have equal access to education, various pieces of the food security jigsaw will fall into place,” Mr. De Schutter said. “Household spending on nutrition will increase, child health outcomes will improve, and social systems will be redesigned – for women, by women – to deliver support with the greatest multiplier effects.”

The Special Rapporteur called on countries to actively redistribute traditional gender roles and responsibilities while still being sensitive to the constraints of women. Less labour-intensive assets such as poultry can be provided to them, he said, along with extensive asset management and social development training.

“There is a fine line between taking into account specific constraints and reinforcing gender roles and stereotypes,” he said. “Food security strategies should be judged on their ability to challenge gender roles and to truly empower women. Gender sensitivity is important, but is not a substitute for empowerment.”

Independent experts, or special rapporteurs, are appointed by the Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

“This year, some nine million people across the Sahel will still require food assistance from WFP, through emergency food assistance, rural development, nutrition and education activities,” said Ertharin Cousin, WFP Executive Director.

Cousin was the host of a high-level event in Rome bringing together leaders of humanitarian agencies, government representatives from affected countries and major donors to review the effectiveness of the assistance provided to the region.

Last year the international community helped to avert a humanitarian catastrophe by providing $1.2 billion in assistance to around 10 million people across eight countries in the Sahel, noted a news release issued by WFP.

“However, millions of people in the region are still affected by drought, with close to 1.5 million children under the age of five at risk of severe acute malnutrition,” said the agency.

Cousin emphasized that boosting food security and building resilience lies at the heart of the collective efforts to change the pattern of recurring drought and continue on the path towards a better future.

WFP says that crop prospects are currently encouraging, but there is a high risk of future shocks, due to increased rates of poverty and undernourishment, extreme weather, environmental degradation, low investment in agriculture, high prices and vulnerability to market volatility.

Also, the conflict in Mali has triggered widespread displacement in the region, uprooting half a million people and placing pressure on communities still recovering from drought.

The western part of the Sahel region, which stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, and includes Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and parts of Sudan, Cameroon and Nigeria, is facing a swathe of problems, which are not only political but also involve security, humanitarian resilience and human rights.

Last September, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi as his Special Envoy for the Sahel and tasked him with shaping and mobilizing an effective UN and international response to the multiple crises facing the region.

“The focus of the United Nations strategy for the Sahel is on the people of the region, to help them address the root causes of instability, with special emphasis on marginalized communities,” said Mr. Prodi. “My role is to bring the best minds and all the resources possible around key long-term development issues that critically affect the peoples of the region.”

Today’s event also featured a short documentary film, “The Human Chain,” which chronicles the humanitarian response to last year’s Sahel crisis, illustrates various forms of assistance – including cash and vouchers, special nutrition programmes to prevent severe cases of malnutrition as well as support for smallholder farmers to improve their self-reliance in the face of difficult climatic and economic conditions.

“In line with the UN Secretary-General’s Zero Hunger Challenge, and in close collaboration with our development partners, we agree that nothing less than the eradication of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition is what we should be striving for,” said José Graziano da Silva, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Opening the global consultation on hunger, food security and nutrition in the post-2015 development agenda, held in Rome on Monday, Mr. Graziano da Silva urged the international community to commit to the complete eradication of hunger in setting its development priorities beyond 2015.

Halving the proportion of hungry people in the world by 2015 was among the targets within the eight MDGs. Some 50 countries are on track to achieve this target, the Director-General noted.

Amir Abdulla, Deputy Executive-Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), urged countries to continue to work together to make hunger “the world’s number one solvable problem.”

Meanwhile, Carlos Serè, Chief Development Strategist of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), emphasized that “investing in the sustainable development of rural areas and in inclusive rural growth,” with a focus on smallholder agriculture, is critical for global food security and to the whole post-2015 agenda.

The one-day consultation called for including a focus on nutrition in the post-2015 development agenda, as well as for dealing with the different dimensions of under-nutrition and the fast-growing problems of obesity and related non-communicable diseases, according to a news release issued by FAO.

It also stressed, among other things, that food security and nutrition represent the cornerstone for progress on other development fronts such as employment, education, the environment and health and in achieving a quality future for humankind, the agency reported.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Zero Hunger Challenge, first proposed at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Brazil last June, aims for a future where every individual has adequate nutrition. Its five objectives are to make sure that everyone in the world has access to enough nutritious food all year long; to end childhood stunting; to build sustainable food systems; to double the productivity and income of smallholder farmers, especially women; and to prevent food from being lost or wasted.

According to the initial results of the Haiti Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), which covered 13,350 households, 77 per cent of children aged 6-11 years attended primary school in 2012, compared to just below 50 per cent in 2005-2006 when the last survey was conducted.

Acute malnutrition among children aged 6-59 months has been reduced by half from 10 per cent to five per cent, and chronic malnutrition has been cut from 29 per cent to 22 per cent between 2005-2006 and 2012.

“Results of the survey show that the efforts of partners in Haiti in these three years contributed to progress in many sectors and mitigated the impact on children of the 2010 earthquake, the outbreak of cholera and other disasters.” said the representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Haiti, Edouard Beigbeder.

“These findings call for a continued commitment to support the country in sustaining this success while addressing existing challenges and where progress has lagged,” he continued.

The Caribbean nation has been re-building since the earthquake struck in early January 2010, killing some 220,000 people and making 1.5 million others homeless, in addition to causing widespread destruction – particularly in the capital, Port-au-Prince – and a major humanitarian crisis.

The DHS 2012 was conducted by the Institut Haitien de l’Enfance, under the overall direction of the country’s Ministry of Population and Public Health, and was supported by UNICEF and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), amongst others.

The survey also notes that the under-five mortality rate, at 88 child deaths per 1,000 live births, has shown a declining trend in the last 15 years, according to new estimates, down from 112 in 1997-2001 and 96 in 2002-2006.

Access to improved sources of water remained unchanged at 65 per cent, while 82 per cent of residents of internally displaced camps had access to improved sources of water. Access to improved sanitation almost doubled from 14 per cent in 2005-2006 to 26 per cent in 2012.

The 2012 Haiti DHS estimates socio-economic, demographic and health indicators for the entire Haitian population, including women of child-bearing age, children under five years of age, men aged between 15 and 59 years old. The last survey took place between October 2005 and June 2006.

With the collaboration of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health, the Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, as well as WFP, the partnership is set to provide some 15 million Afghans with nutritionally-fortified wheat flour, vegetable oil and ghee – a clarified butter common in Central and South Asian cuisine – in order to help reduce the prevalence of vitamin and mineral deficiencies among the country’s more vulnerable groups, such as children under the age of five and women of reproductive age.

“Chronic malnutrition, especially among women and children, is a terrible burden for the people of Afghanistan, both in terms of health and economic productivity,” the WFP Afghanistan Country Director and Representative, Louis Imbleau, said in a news release. “Micronutrient fortification is a cost-efficient intervention that can really help tackle this problem.”

The partnership has recruited the largest vegetable oil producers and wheat flour millers exporting to or producing in Afghanistan, while equipment and nutrient blends will be provided to industry along with training for quality assurance.

WFP, the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting global hunger, is a key player in Afghanistan’s efforts against malnutrition and hunger. In January 2012, the agency contributed $3 million to a food voucher project which continues to function as a safety net against high food prices for Afghanistan’s urban poor.

“Conflict has disrupted health services across Syria so most refugee children and their families have not had access to routine immunizations or other basic health services,” the Middle East Regional Health Advisor for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Mahendra Sheth, said in a news release.

“This work is vital because during a crisis children are most vulnerable to disease outbreaks and malnutrition, especially children living in camp settings like Za’atari,” he added.

Nutrition screening in Za’atari refugee camp, in northern Jordan, is taking place in parallel to a weekly immunization clinic in the camp, according to UNICEF.

The agency, along with the Jordanian Ministry of Health, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) and other partners, are also launching a large-scale polio and measles vaccination campaign targeting more than 100,000 children in Za’atari, nearby transit centres, and communities hosting refugees in northern Jordan.

More than 18,000 people, mostly civilians, have died since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began nearly 18 months ago, according to the UN while activists put the death toll to more than 26,000. Amidst reports of an escalation in violence in recent weeks in many towns and villages, as well as the country’s two biggest cities, Damascus and Aleppo, UN agencies now estimate that some 2.5 million Syrians are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

UN officials have been calling for enhanced international support to respond to the growing crisis, in particular for the $180 million Humanitarian Response Plan, which is only half-funded, with some critical sectors having received almost no funding at all.

UNICEF is also calling on the international community for increased funding of its emergency water, sanitation, education, health and nutrition programmes, which are reaching tens of thousands of Syrian children and their families in Syria and neighbouring countries.

The agency noted that amid extremely difficult working conditions, it, along with local partners in Syria, is reaching families sheltering in schools across Damascus with life-saving health care.

Eight mobile medical teams are to be dispatched to reach 175,000 people in many areas hardest hit by the ongoing conflict, including Aleppo, Damascus, Dara’a, Hama and Homs, while rapid assessments to monitor the nutritional situation of children will also be scaled up.

Immunizations are also being provided in Lebanon and Iraq, where more than 40,000 and 15,000 Syrian refugees are sheltering respectively, and the nutritional status of children five years of age and under is being monitored closely.

Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, said: “Considering how fast this crisis is growing, and the number of people it is affecting, Yemen is becoming one of the direst humanitarian crises in the world today with record malnutrition rates. But it is also among the crises that risk slipping off the radar of international donors. We cannot allow that. The European Commission is boosting its humanitarian support so that it can reach with relief more of the worst-affected people, the majority of whom are women, children and refugees. We are helping those who cannot help themselves, but we are also building bridges to rehabilitation – this is the only way to help Yemen pull out from the bottom where its chronic problems have dragged it”.

Conflict in the North is affecting around one million people, while more than 250,000 are suffering due to conflict in the South, and Yemen’s malnutrition levels are among the world’s highest with one million children suffering from acute malnutrition.

10 million Yemenis (40% of the population) live mainly on bread and tea. In some governorates like Hodeida, along the center of Yemen’s western coast, the level of global acute malnutrition is 32%, more than double the internationally recognized emergency level of 15%. The continuing influx of refugees from the Horn of Africa is adding to the humanitarian needs. Another challenge is the restricted access to those in need, caused by fighting and the repeated attacks on and kidnappings of relief workers.

The new aid allocation brings to €40 million the Commission’s 2012 humanitarian assistance to Yemen. The EU is as much as possible linking these humanitarian interventions with early recovery and development programmes (especially in the areas of food security and public health).

Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab peninsula. Over 43% of the population lives below the poverty line on less than EUR 2 a day. It has the world’s third highest rate of malnutrition.

Poverty combined with conflict, drought, refugee flows and rising food prices, has aggravated an already deep humanitarian crisis during the last year.

Since 2004 an armed conflict in the north has seen six major cycles of fighting and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. More than 310,000 have not yet been able to return to their homes. Those who have gone home now struggle with slow reconstruction and a lack of even the most basic services. The conflict has also had a severe impact on the livelihoods of a million people living close to the former fighting zones.

Flight from fighting has also displaced over 170,000 people in the South who are unable to return to their homes and have no employment prospects.

Yemen is also directly affected by the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa. Over 250,000 refugees, mainly from Somalia and Ethiopia, are stranded in the country and live in precarious conditions either in Kharaz, the only camp for refugees, or in poor urban areas.

It is very difficult to bring aid to those who need it in Yemen as a worsening security situation means that aid workers struggle to reach many areas. This leaves large numbers of displaced people isolated from essential humanitarian aid.

The European Commission maintains its long-term commitment to helping alleviate Yemen’s acute humanitarian needs. Since 1994 it has provided more than €93 million in vital assistance to the affected population.

“The humanitarian situation is deteriorating rapidly because of the inadequacy of the response. The situation in Mali is desperate, but not hopeless,” stressed the Director of Operations of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), John Ging.

“There needs to be a paradigm shift in the way the humanitarian response is funded. We can avoid a disaster, but only if the opportunities for a quick scaling up of the response are not missed,” he added.

In January, fighting between Government forces and Tuareg rebels resumed in northern Mali. The instability and insecurity resulting from the renewed clashes, as well as the proliferation of armed groups in the region, and political instability in the wake of a coup d’état in March, have uprooted more than 420,000 people, according to OCHA, with many fleeing to the neighbouring countries of Niger, Mauritania and Burkina Faso due to insecurity.

These countries, however, are among the most severely affected by the food and nutrition crisis raging across the Sahel region of West Africa, which has put 18 million lives at risk.

During a three-day mission to Mali, Ging visited displacement camps in Mopti in the north, where he heard first-hand the traumatic stories of violence against women and children who had fled their homes.

In Bamako, the capital, Mr. Ging told reporters that “there appears to be a misconception that without a solution to the security and political crisis in the north of the country, little can be done to scale up the humanitarian response. In fact, 80 per cent of the country’s humanitarian needs are in the south, where there is relative stability.”

While work is being carried out by national and international organizations in the northern part of the country, Mr. Ging said the lack of funding is hampering the scaling up of activities in the region. Currently, only 42 per cent of the $214 million required for the humanitarian response has been received.

Health, education, water, sanitation and hygiene are the most critically underfunded sectors, Ging said, adding that this could quickly lead to the outbreak of epidemics like cholera, which is threatening to spread throughout West Africa.

The $3 million project, financed by the Government of Italy, will establish Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools and Community Model Gardens to give women and young people the opportunity to manage their own food production enterprises, FAO said in a news release.

Through the training, participants will learn how to grow food and to raise small animals, and to improve household incomes through the sale of food products.

Training will be provided on how to produce organic fertilizers so households can avoid purchasing expensive fertilizers, as well as on food processing and preservation techniques, household budgeting, record keeping, and food marketing. Microcredit and savings opportunities, better food preparation and consumption practices, and food safety and hygiene will also be covered.

According to health surveys in Egypt, malnutrition is the root cause of over one third of sicknesses affecting children under the age of five.

To tackle this problem, nutrition education and behaviour change communication plans will be developed to promote food diversification, food hygiene, family planning, breast feeding and complementary feeding practices.

Radio dramas and spots, videos and events will also be used to promote better nutrition education. Community kitchens will offer women the chance to meet regularly and use knowledge acquired to prepare healthy meals using fruits and vegetables they produced.

FAO added that national and local government staff and community workers will be trained in food production and nutrition so that they become familiar with nutrition and health issues, approaches to nutrition improvement and knowledge of household food production methods.