I am delighted to join you all to speak about the Joint UN Initiative for the Prevention of Wasting (JUNIPr).
The Prime Minister announced the creation of this partnership at the G20 summit in Rio last November and so today is a chance for us to share more information on this very timely initiative with a wider audience.
My experience goes back further than simply being a Minister. As a shadow minister for 10 years, I was very much focused on nutrition and how we can move it forward in terms of the global agenda.
We have a proud history as a country on malnutrition across the globe including in our role as hosts of the first ever Nutrition for Growth summit in 2013. We are very much looking forward to the Paris Nutrition for Growth summit later this month.
I’m really happy to join you today to talk about this and as we head into the final 5 years of the sustainable development goals towards 2030, it is important that we take stock of the progress that we have made so far, which challenges remain and where we need to go from here in order to ensure we are making sustainable progress that the globe so necessarily needs.
The issue of child wasting, the deadliest form of malnutrition, is an area where making progress has been particularly challenging. Whilst we have made progress on increasing the number of children being reached with life-saving treatment, we continue to see the same number of children becoming wasted each year.
It’s an incredibly difficult situation because it is entirely preventable. It’s a preventable condition and it’s simply not good enough that we’ve not made this progress. No child should become wasted, especially when we know that even one bout of wasting can leave a child with lifelong development challenges, increasing their risk of disease, reducing their quality of life.
We know that in countries where child malnutrition is high, it is both individuals and the growth of the wider economy that suffers. That is a really important point to remember when we’re focusing on economic development in continents where this situation is getting worse. Tackling malnutrition through programmes like JUNIPr will help boost economic growth around the world and in the UK, supporting the Prime Minister’s Plan for Change. It’s a win-win situation if we can focus on it.
This is why I am happy to be here today to open this event and to share more information about the JUNIPr partnership. An initiative which at its heart, is all about strengthening our efforts and improving the way in which we work to prevent wasting particularly in food insecure settings.
I am delighted to say that today we have with us government representatives from the 3 JUNIPr-focus countries, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Mali as well as representatives from the 3 UN agencies (UNICEF, World Food Programme and World Health Organization) as well as our research partner IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute) who will all be sharing their views and perspectives on this partnership and how we hope it will contribute to sustainable progress towards our goal of ending malnutrition in all its forms by 2030.
I will now hand you back to the moderator and I look forward to hearing all of your contributions today. Thank you very much.
