To grow, we must tackle malnutrition

Malnutrition is on the rise in every country in the world and is a leading global driver of disease. It represents one of the biggest challenges facing the global community and directly affects one in three people in multiple forms, including undernourishment, overweight, mineral deficiencies, and high sugar, salt, fat or cholesterol levels.

The 2016 Global Nutrition Report shows that 44 per cent of countries with data available (57 out of 129 countries) experience serious levels of both undernutrition, adult overweight and obesity, and that despite good progress in some countries, the world is off-track to reduce and reverse the trend.

The report highlights the staggering economic costs of malnutrition, estimated at 11 per cent of GDP per year in Africa and Asia, as well as the critical gaps in investments and commitments. Malnutrition thus provides a serious challenge.

Over the past nine years, major international commitments have been made to reduce undernutrition. These were articulated at the World Summit for Children in 1990, the International Conference for Nutrition in 1992, and the World Food Summit in 1996.

These conferences emphasised the reduction of undernutrition as part of a broader strategy to eliminate poverty.

The establishment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 and the UN’s labelling of the coming decade as the “Decade of Action on Nutrition” shows that there is renewed awareness and commitment to tackling the varied challenges of malnutrition.

At least 12 of the 17 SDGs are directly related to nutrition and contain nutrition-related indicators. This reflects nutrition’s central role in achieving sustainable development as well as its interrelationships with most developments sectors.

The result of Kenya’s intervention to reduce undernutrition in children is reflected in the declining rates of stunting, wasting, and underweight reported in the latest Kenya Demographic Health Survey 2014.

The survey indicates that more than a quarter (26 per cent) of the children below five years are stunted, down from 35 per cent in the 2008-2009 survey, 11 per cent are underweight, down from 16 per cent, and 4 per cent are wasted, down from 7 per cent.

Yet more needs to be done to address regional disparities and escalating nutrition rates. In addition, the challenges of other forms of malnutrition are significant — 28 per cent of Kenyans are either overweight or obese and 45 per cent experience high blood pressure, reported in the first Kenya STEPwise Survey (2015). These place a significant burden on our country’s health and economy.

ENDING POVERTY
Kenya has demonstrated significant commitment to meeting nutrition targets. Article 43 (1) (c) of the Constitution recognises nutrition as a human right.

It states that every person has the right to be free from hunger and to access adequate food of acceptable quality.

The Ministry of Health is keen to ensure that there is appropriate legislation to raise the profile of nutrition coordination.

However, legislation and commitment alone are not enough. We need to transform the political commitments for action into on-the-ground actions.

This will require significantly increasing the number and capacity of frontline workers. It will also require sustained support for strategies that promote good maternal nutrition, optimal breastfeeding, appropriate complementary feeding, early detection and management of illness and acute malnutrition, and improved water, sanitation, and hygiene behaviour and conditions. 

With collective efforts at the international, national, and county levels, ending malnutrition is both a credible and achievable goal.

Action addresses nutrition on several fronts: identification and diagnosis, treatment and nutritional care, prevention and risk reduction, strengthening capacity and sustainability, research and innovation, and political impact.

This means that civil society organisations, donors, and businesses — as well as the government — need to step up their efforts to direct more of the resources already invested in agriculture, education, food and health systems, social protection, and water, sanitation and hygiene to nutrition.

Recognising and addressing the world’s malnutrition problem as one of the major underlying impediments to eradicating global poverty and economic growth will not only save lives, it will also unleash the potential of our people to speed up Kenya’s development agenda.

Dr Mailu is Cabinet secretary, Ministry of Health. [email protected].