Child malnutrition costs Africa its future growth

By Stella Dawson WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Poorly fed children rob Africa of up to 16 percent of its potential growth, making investment in programs to end malnutrition as critical to the continent’s future as building bridges and roads, African leaders and development officials said on Monday. Almost half all child deaths in Africa are caused by inadequate food and it is the underlying cause of many diseases, yet approaches to tackling health and child nutrition are disjointed and uncoordinated, limiting their impact, according to World Bank and United Nations reports. “Every child stunted is GDP growth that is left on the table,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said at an event on the sidelines of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit which lasts through Wednesday. The lessons learned from Asia and Latin America are that economic growth alone will not resolve poverty and malnutrition, and that human development programs reap significant growth dividends, he and other leaders said.

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