CWS: New U.S., global nutrition initiatives can 'save tomorrow's generation'

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

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CWS: New U.S., global nutrition initiatives can 'save tomorrow's 
generation'

NEW YORK, N.Y.--Sept. 22, 2010 -- The

announcement of the new United Nations Scaling Up
Nutrition "SUN" Roadmap and the Tuesday (Sept.
21) launch of the joint U.S.-Ireland "1,000 Days:
Change a Life, Change the Future" initiative to
reduce child under-nutrition gives hope that the
world might save millions of children's lives and
the future of tomorrow's generation, says global
humanitarian agency Church World Service.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Irish
Foreign Minister Michaél Martin announced the
joint 1,000 Days initiative in New York, as the
UN goes into this week's General Assembly session
and deliberation on the status of the Millennium Development Goals.

Sustainable development agency Church World

Service applauded both the UN SUN Roadmap and the
U.S.-Ireland initiative's focus on maternal
health and nutrition in the first 1,000 days of a
child's life as the key strategy to reaching the
MDG goal to eradicate hunger and poverty -- an
investment CWS refers to as life insurance for tomorrow's generation.

Without key nutrients from the start of pregnancy
until a child reaches the age of 2, a child's
brain and overall physical development can suffer irreversible damage.

Worldwide, chronic malnutrition causes 3.5

million maternal and under-5 child deaths a year
-- one child every six seconds -- and 200 million
children suffer from chronic under-nutrition. In
the U.S. one in five of America's children lived
in poverty last year and more than one in five
children is at risk of hunger every day.

Today's launch of the 1,000 Days initiative and
the UN's unveiling of its SUN Roadmap, both on
child under-nutrition, followed last week's
reports by the FAO and the U.S. Census Bureau
report that one in seven Americans is now living in poverty.

On the reports by the FAO last week, Bloem says,
â??We were expecting the poverty rate to go down,
so it's positive that the rate has improved. But
if you look at the gaps between the poor and the
rich, and at the poverty, hunger and nutritional
status of children and mothers, well,"he said, "we're plainly not 
there yet.

"Even in a developed, leading country like the
United States, as of 2009, 16.7 million of its
children, that's more than 22 percent of all
American children, live in food insecure households,"he said.

But Bloem noted, â??If we follow the path laid
forward by the new SUN framework and if we all
work together to focus on the first 1,000 days of
life and the truly simple interventions that
support infant and maternal health and
nutritional well-being, chronic child
malnutrition can become part of human history,"he
said, â??and not part of our future."

"Improving nutrition is nothing less than a

pre-condition to achieving the MDGs, that is, the
goals to eradicate poverty and hunger, reduce
child mortality, improve maternal health, combat
disease, empower women, and achieve universal primary education,"said 
Bloem.

Bloem says grassroots "maternal education,

breastfeeding and vitamin and mineral supplements
and fortified foods are incredibly economical,
highly available interventions for babies in the
first 1,000 days of a child's critical
development are investments that deliver healthy,
thriving children who can grow into becoming productive adults."

At the 1,000 Days forum Ugandan Foreign Minister
Sam Kutesa described the cycle of
under-nourishment and human physical and mental
development. "Those who don't die do not grow
well and do not become productive and become
dependent on their countries," he said. "With
malnutrition, even children who don't die soon
after being born don't become productive, which impacts poverty.

"If you don"t deal with nutrition, you don"t deal
with poverty. If you deal with nutrition, you are
dealing with poverty in Africa," Kutesa said,
urging investment in nutrition and agriculture.

Bread for the World President David Beckmann
underscored the basic approaches of a nutritional
strategy: Focus on babies for the first 1,000
days. Help parents understand basic health
practices such as washing your hands with
soap."You give a few key micronutrients to
everybody." Help communities identify mothers and
children in need and get supplements to them. Let
countries plan local programs. And focus on
agriculture and health development programs.

At the 1,000 Days forum, on the related topic of
food security, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
said, "The world is moving on food security,"
noting the importance of small holder farmers in
African and other developing countries and the
role of women.  Ban underscored ongoing
commitment to "better coordinate agriculture,
health and nutrition for long-term results" and
acknowledged the support of the USAID Feed the Future initiative.

Emphasizing the Secretary General's comment,
CWS's Bloem said, â??Gender equality and
empowerment of women are at the heart of the
MDGs. I am absolutely convinced that the reason
we did make some progress on poverty alleviation,
but far less around hunger and education, has to
do with our slow progress concerning women's
empowerment. Church World Service will continue
to push for this; it is at the core of much of
the development work that we do worldwide."

* Source: Household Food Security in the United
States, 2008 . U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Economic Research Service, November 2009. (Table 1A, Table 1B)

Media Contact:

Lesley Crosson, 212-870-2676, lcrosson@churchworldservice.org
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526, jdragin@gis.net

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