ENDING CHILD HUNGER
Kupka stressed that the nutrition crisis in Asia is becoming increasingly urgent, where about 19 million children are “chronically undernourished”.
Malnutrition, which is an imbalance between the nutrients one’s body needs to function and the nutrients it receives, can significantly stunt children’s physical and brain development, he added.
“We also see that deficiencies in vitamins and minerals are still very common, and at the same time, we see that more and more children are overweight and obese.
“So I think really what we need to make sure is that children have access to the right diets, the right services and to the right practices, and that we support governments to put in place the right policies and programmes to address these forms of malnutrition.”
Kupka said the financing of aid programmes is one of the biggest hurdles in tackling malnutrition.
He noted that there is a need for “mechanisms” that can assess various financing needs and incentivise the production of certain nutritious food in settings where they are needed.
UNICEF, for instance, has introduced the Child Nutrition Fund to quicken the scaling up of sustainable policies, programmes and supplies to end child undernutrition, said Kupka.
“We feel that that has real promise to address malnutrition in this region, as well as in other regions.”
