By Martin Banks - 8th November 2011
Improved nutrition is key to achieving six of the eight MDGs. If we manage to achieve these goals, we will have prevented millions of deaths
Kristalina Georgieva
This is a disaster and affects not just Africa but also south east Asia
Mark Eyskens
The European parliament will stress this urgent need when, in the next year, it will come to define future policies and their financial priorities. We have to ban hunger and to ban malnutrition
Thijs Berman MEP
We must [combat malnutrition] more decisively than before
Herman Van Rompuy
European council president Herman Van Rompuy has urged the international community, including the EU, to take "more decisive" action to tackle global malnutrition.
Van Rompuy, addressing a high level conference on combating malnutrition on Tuesday in Brussels, said the EU was the world's biggest aid donor, contributing some 56 per cent of all global aid commitments.
However, he stressed that all parties should still strive for "further aid effectiveness."
Van Rompuy pointed out that, recently, the world's population reached the seven billion mark, adding, "Somewhere in the world, maybe in India, maybe in the Philippines, a woman gave birth to a child.
"This is good news: is there a more beautiful sign of life than the birth of a child? But it is also a cause for concern. Will this little boy or girl live on a planet with a safe and healthy environment? More importantly, will the earth be able to feed this child?"
He said it was not only the world's "moral duty" to combat global malnutrition but was also in its economic, political and security interests. "We must do this more decisively than before," he said.
Another keynote speaker at the conference, organised by PA International, was EU commissioner Kristalina Georgieva who said that nutrition and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were "inter-dependent."
Improved nutrition contributes to achieving the MDGs and achieving the MDGs "underpins an effective response to under nutrition," she said.
Georgieva, who is responsible for international cooperation, humanitarian aid and crisis response, said that adequate nutrition is required to meet two of the MDGs but that under nutrition also impedes the attainment of three other goals.
"So improved nutrition is key to achieving six of the eight MDGs. If we manage to achieve these goals, we will have prevented millions of deaths," she said.
It was for this reason, that she endorses the World Health Organisation's opinion that under-nutrition is the "greatest single threat" to the world's public health.
She also praised the role played by the private sector in humanitarian relief, saying the conference was a "very good forum" to debate such issues.
"I see the great value of private sector engagement in efficiency, innovation and for filling competency gaps found in the humanitarian sector," she said.
The "private sector is invaluable" and can play an "important role" within the humanitarian sector through public-private collaboration.
Dutch MEP Thijs Berman, a member of the assembly's development committee, said that back in 2008 when the food crisis was evolving, malnutrition was "not very high on the agenda."
He added, "Of course, we are blessed with the MDGs, aiming at halving hunger by 2015 but aside from this meagre objective – the bare minimum of development – there was little action matching this official goal."
Berman went on, "Malnutrition can be eliminated but this will not happen tomorrow. It takes more than a pill of spiruline but recent economic developments in Africa are encouraging. This is the moment when the EU has to step in.
"The European parliament will stress this urgent need when, in the next year, it will come to define future policies and their financial priorities. We have to ban hunger and to ban malnutrition."
Opening the conference, Mark Eyskens, a former Belgian prime minister, said that, according to Unicef, only half of developing countries – 62 out of 118 – were on track to achieve the MDGs.
Eyskens, chairman of PA International, the event organisers, said this meant that one third of under-fives in the world were threatened by under-nourishment. "This is a disaster and affects not just Africa but also south east Asia," he said.
Further comment came from Arif Havas Oegroseno, the Indonesian ambassador to the EU and Belgium, who described malnutrition as the "single gravest threat" to global public health.
He also appealed to European countries to be more mindful of the amount of food which is "lost or wasted" in the food supply chain. "While we have to tackle the problem of malnutrition, the problem of food which is wasted has to be addressed at the same time."
Roughly one third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally, Oegroseno told the conference, adding that, "food waste also means that huge amounts of the resources used in food production are used in vain."
