21 March 2007
“Chronic child malnutrition is unacceptable on ethical and humanitarian grounds, but also for social, economic and political reasons,” WFP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean Pedro Medrano Rojas said of the accord signed on Monday by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Governors for the countries concerned.

“Food, nutrition and health are basic human rights, without which there is little likelihood of total inclusion in society. But in addition to the high individual and collective cost of malnutrition in terms of human lives, schooling and productivity, inequity and poverty are a threat to democratic governance and peace,” he added.

The initiative is the first one to give top priority to combating chronic child malnutrition in the fight against poverty. It is also the first time a regional group of finance ministry officials agreed on specific joint measures for nutrition.

“This unprecedented initiative finally gives us a historic opportunity to address the poverty that afflicts millions of people in the region, particularly poverty among the one fourth of children under the age of five in Central America and the Dominican Republic suffering from chronic malnutrition (close to 1.7 million),” Mr. Medrano said.

“The unfortunate fact of the matter is that chronic child malnutrition has not only caused unnecessary suffering for millions of children, but has also stymied economic development in the region,” he added.

A preliminary study conducted by the WFP and the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in the seven Central American countries found that the average cost of chronic child malnutrition in 2004 was $6.6 billion, or 6.4 per cent of gross national product in the region.