The United Nations has called for urgent action to protect the most vulnerable children in Nigeria and 14 other countries, hardest hit by an unprecedented food and nutrition crisis.
The call was made over the weekend in a statement issued by five UN agencies — the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP) and World Health Organisation (WHO).
The organisation listed some countries that are hardest hit by the unprecedented food and nutrition crises.
The statement revealed that, conflicts, climate shocks, the on-going impacts of COVID-19 and rising costs of living are leaving increasing numbers of children acutely malnourished.
“This is happening when key health nutrition and other life-saving services are becoming less accessible.
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“Currently, more than 30 million children in the 15 worst-affected countries suffer from wasting or acute malnutrition and eight million of these children are severely wasted, the deadliest form of undernutrition.
This is a major threat to children’s lives and to their long-term health and development, the impacts of which are felt by individuals, their communities and their countries,” it said.
The statement added that they called for accelerated progress on the Global Action Plan on Child Wasting.
“This is aimed to prevent, detect and treat acute malnutrition among children in the worst-affected countries, which are Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Others are Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen.
It said that the Global Action Plan addressed the need for a multi-sectoral approach and highlighted priority actions across maternal and child nutrition through the food, health, water and sanitation, and social protection systems.
