World Vision commits US$500 million to fight global malnutrition

•  World Vision will commit $500 million of private funding to tackle malnutrition over the next five years and will also allocate an additional $700m in nutrition grant-funded programmes.
• The aid agency’s investment will mean that more than 1 million children will avoid malnutrition.

14th December, 2020 World Vision International’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Morley, today committed US$500 million to flight malnutrition, and told global nutrition leaders that eliminating malnutrition – especially for women and girls – is a top priority for the organisation.

Mr Morley, made the announcement as part of the Nutrition 4 Growth Year of Action launch hosted by the Governments of Canada and Bangladesh, attended by and featuring key aid sector leaders such as Henrietta H. Fore, Executive Director of UNICEF, and Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“As a child-focused organisation, World Vision refuses to accept the current status quo of child malnutrition globally,” Mr Morley said. “Good nutrition is an essential foundation for health and development, yet malnutrition is still the single-biggest contributor to under five child mortality. World Vision is determined to work towards a future in which children dying of malnutrition is a thing of the past. If we join together, we will succeed. This, I promise you.”

“We know from bitter experience in 100 countries that malnutrition steals so many young children’s lives, and diminishes lifelong potential for hundreds of millions more, with a disproportionate impact on girls. We can and must to more to ensure children achieve their full potential.”

Women and girls are most affected by poor nutrition globally, “empowering them is a game-changing solution for eliminating malnutrition,” he added.

Other commitments made by the organisation included:

•  Treating 500,000 children for malnutrition.
• Reaching 200,000 people with programmes that equip caregivers to prepare locally sourced nutritious food.
• Providing supplementary feeding for 250,000 pregnant and breastfeeding mothers.
• Leveraging 184,000 World Vision-supported community health workers to reach the most vulnerable households with nutrition counselling.

Mr Morley stressed he was particularly proud that World Vision’s nutrition programmes would be addressing the interconnections between nutrition, gender equality, women’s empowerment and child well-being by continuing to develop, scale up and promote the Gender-Transformative Framework for Nutrition.

ENDS.

Note to editor

For more information contact Ludovic Wahis at Ludovic_Wahis@wvi.org

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and their communities to reach their full potential by tackling the root causes of poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender. For more information, please visit www.wvi.org/eu or follow us on Twitter @WorldVisionEU