Maternal and child nutrition: Building momentum for impact
Date
2013-06
Authors
Black, R.E.
Alderman, H.
Bhutta, Z.A.
Gillespie, S.
Haddad, L.
Horton, S.
Lartey, A.
Mannar, V.
Ruel, M.
Victora, C.G.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Lancet
Abstract
support for the interventions that can be quickly scaled
up or linked to nutrition programmes—such as early
child development initiatives. It is equally important to
take note of the message of Marie Ruel and colleagues
4
—
that in certain sectors, such as agriculture, the evidence
of the eff
ect of targeted programmes on maternal and
child nutrition is largely inconclusive and requires new
approaches to fi
eld evaluation.
Since 2008, there have been only limited increases in
donor aid for nutrition. It is true that nutrition is not
so readily attractive to politicians as an international
development priority. Undernutrition has a complex
set of political, social, and economic causes, none of
which are amenable to easy solutions that fi
t within
the timeframe of a single political cycle. For this reason,
the outlook today for nutrition is not wholly good. The
target endorsed only a year ago at the World Health
Assembly—to reduce by 40% the number of children
stunted by 2025—is already on course to be missed.
As the endpoint of the Millennium Development
Goals approaches, countries and the international
community may agree that nutrition was one of the
great missed opportunities of the past 15 years. But this
neglect can be turned around quickly. As sustainable
development becomes the dominant idea post-2015,
nutrition emerges as the quintessential example of a
sustainable development objective. If maternal and
child nutrition is optimised, the benefi
ts will accrue
and extend over several generations. This remarkable
opportunity is why Stuart Gillespie and colleagues
5
take
a very diff
erent approach to implementation than in any
previous
Lancet
Series. Instead of exhorting politicians
and policy makers to do something—or worse, simply
hoping that political commitment will appear like a
rabbit out of a hat—they set out a practical guide about
how to seize the agenda for nutrition, how to create
political momentum, and how to turn that momentum
into results. This is the prize we have to grasp in the next
18 months.
Description
Keywords
Maternal nutrition, child nutrition