Call for EU Policy on Nutrition

Today, globally 925 million people are starving. Of these 178 million are children. 40% of children under 5 in Africa and 35% in Asia suffer as a result of hunger and malnutrition. The largest number of children affected by stunting (reduced growth among 74 million children in total) live in south-central Asia.

A world population growing to 7 billion in 2011 and to 9 billion in 2050; yet there is ever decreasing arable land, lower agricultural production, diminishing water supply and a fewer number of farmers.
Manmade or natural disasters depriving human beings of essential food and nutrition.
A ‘silent crisis’ robbing 178 million children of a life of physical and intellectual accomplishment due to major nutrient deficiencies in their first 1,000 days of life.

Through its Communication on Food Security the European Commission focuses its development cooperation policy at improvement of agriculture production in areas where malnutrition threatens the lives of millions. This approach will deliver results over time as agricultural policies worldwide have a tendency to be slow in adaptation and innovation while modernization initiatives towards privatization do not easily converge with local ideological and political environments. Recent academic reports identify that current food production is still sufficient to feed the world’s population today, but lack of investment in infrastructure, logistics and cold stores is leading to massive and irresponsible wasting. While it is correct that the major part of EU development aid is spent to promote agriculture and rural development, more budgetary emphasis should be given to radically reduce systematic waste.

The current humanitarian disaster in Somalia demonstrates that the efforts by DG Humanitarian Aid & Civil Protection (ECHO) to prepare for humanitarian and food/nutrition support during natural or manmade crises deserve further support and ever-stronger international coordination. Preparedness and prevention through nutritional intervention must be continued and stepped up.

All major IGOs and NGOs including UNICEF, the World Food Programme, Red Cross and Action Contre la Faim underline that, globally, underweight prevalence in children under five years old stands at 26%. More than one third of under-five child deaths are attributed to undernutrition. Only half of all developing countries (62 out of 118) are on track to achieve Millennium Development Goals (the first goal being fighting poverty including hunger). The multi-faceted nature of malnutrition requires different actors and different interventions: availability of food, access to food, and provision of nutritious food at the right time. Malnutrition has a range of immediate, underlying and basic causes, and efforts to tackle it must be multi-disciplinary and engage multiple stakeholders in line with national priorities of affected countries.

This disaster affects not only Africa and Asia but also other regions across the globe. Save The Children UK estimates the costs of a package to address undernutrition for the eight countries where half of the world’s malnourished children live to just 8.8 billion US dollars annually. The SUN Road Map (Scaling Up Nutrition) projects a cost of 12 billion US dollars annually to provide relief to 36 countries with the most serious forms of malnutrition. While these budgets may seem high, the cost of doing nothing is actually much higher: malnutrition-caused disease and lack of economic performance cost the global economy approximately 80 billion US dollars annually.

The total European Commission development aid budget is 12 billion Euros per year. Of this approximately 410 million or around 3.4% is currently allocated to direct nutrition intervention.

There is a dramatic need to change this approach and to spend considerably more resources on combating malnutrition through direct nutrition intervention on a sustained basis. This requires more scientific research and development to obtain better and cheaper methods to identify deficiencies. The dwindling resources for Official Development Aid and the requirement to optimize the use of available public and private resources require the earliest possible development of combined Public Private Partnership and Corporate Social Responsibility approaches. Nutrition support to children cannot be limited in time but must be a sustained and sustainable effort requiring new models involving industries of both developing and emerging economies and their respective Governments. The addressing of the key important issue of food security differs of the approach to secure sustained nutrition intervention to combat the ‘silent crisis’.

The undersigned organizations and institutions join the European Council in calling on the European Commission to mobilize the unique EU technological, technical and industrial potential and to publish a special Communication on Nutrition. This Communication should include adequately increased budgets for direct nutrition interventions, greater financial support for nutrition-related activities, a clear policy that supports preventative and sustainable interventions, and guidance on the development of models promoting Public Private Partnership and Corporate Social Responsibility based projects.

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Mr. Marc Tarabella MEP (Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats, S&D)

La Sociedad Espanola de Dietetica y Ciencias de la Alimentacion (S.E.D.C.A.)