www.actionagainsthunger.org

Global hunger—both chronic and acute malnutrition—now afflicts more than a billion people worldwide, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Acute malnutrition, however, is the more immediate killer: it threatens 19 million—mostly young children—with starvation. Every year as many as 5 million children die from hunger-related causes.

This loss of life is all the more tragic because acute malnutrition is preventable, predictable, and cost- effective to treat. We know how to save starving children if we can reach them, but only about 3% ever receive help because traditional therapeutic programs were impossible to scale up. Yet this is about to change:

We now have the tools to end acute malnutrition.

A range of micronutrient-dense Ready-To-Use-Foods (RUFs) have been developed that are ideal tools for treating and preventing acute malnutrition. These new RUFs require no preparation, no dilution (avoiding dirty water), no refrigeration, have a long shelf-life, can be stored anywhere, and can be massively scaled up.

These tools are real and they’ve been tested. We simply need public support and political commitment to make this happen on a large enough scale to save the millions of children who die each year. No child should die of hunger today. Join the Campaign and help end childhood deaths from malnutrition!  Read More...

On the Front Lines of Malnutrition

An interview with the man in charge of ACF's Stabilization Center in Karamoja, Uganda
July 24, 2009