Fighting Child Hunger in the Sahel

The United Nations says in 2012, aid agencies treated a record number of children in the Sahel area of West Africa for severe acute malnutrition. The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, says many of them were saved from the life-threatening condition. Severe food shortages and drought have increased malnutrition rates in the Sahel. 

UNICEF says about 850,000 children received emergency food aid and other medical treatment in 2012. The agency says undernourishment, which is a lack of important nutrients, is partly responsible for more than half of child deaths in the Sahel. Malnutrition increases the risk that a child will suffer diseases like diarrhea or malaria.

Felicite Tchibindat is UNICEF’s nutrition advisor for the Sahel. She says preventing malnutrition is very important during the first two years of a child’s life. She says malnutrition can also affect a child’s risk of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressureand diabetes. 

Felicite Tchibindat says malnutrition has an economic effect as well. She says the World Bank estimates that the area’s economic productivity lost two to three percent last year because not enough was done to prevent malnutrition. UNICEF says malnutrition is more than not getting enough food. It is about not getting the right food, especially during the first two years. 

UNICEF is also urging mothers to breastfeed, and it supports efforts to guarantee clean drinking water. It is educating parents about the importance of feeding their children protein, and vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables.