ease, experience enough brain development to go to school and
hold a job as an adult.
The science of nutrition points to a strategy. If we target
that brief critical period during which nutrition has the biggest impact and focus on improving nutrition for expectant
mothers, new mothers, and young children, we can accomplish several things at once. We can save lives, we can help
children start life on a better path, and we can bolster economic development and learning down the road.”
Margaret W. Nea
Improving maternal and child nutrition are primary objectives of the U.S. government’s Global Hunger and Food
Security—Feed the Future (FTF) initiative—and Global
Health Initiative (GHI). Both initiatives include nutrition indicators as measures of progress.
rapid spikes in the prices of staple foods. In addition to increasing U.S. development assistance for agriculture, the
administration was instrumental in forging an agreement to
launch a global food security initiative at the G-8 Summit in
L’Aquila, Italy. The L’Aquila Food Security Initiative17 is a
three-year commitment of $22 billion by the G-8 countries
to increase investment in smallholder agriculture and food
security.
In a 2010 speech18 at CARE’s annual conference, Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made a strong case for increasing U.S. government investments in maternal and child
nutrition:
“More than 3 million children and 100,000 mothers die every year from causes related to under-nutrition, which weakens immune systems, makes people susceptible to other health
problems such as anemia, which is a leading contributor of
maternal mortality, and pneumonia, which is the leading
cause of death for children worldwide.
Under-nutrition impairs the effectiveness of life-saving
medications, including the antiretrovirals needed by people
living with HIV and AIDS. And the effects of under-nutrition linger for generations. Girls stunted by under-nutrition
grow up to be women who are more likely to endure, if they
survive, difficult pregnancies. And then their children, too,
come into life undernourished....
Nutrition plays the most critical role in a person’s life during a narrow window of time—the 1,000 days that begin at
the start of a pregnancy and continue through the second year
of life. The quality of nutrition during those 1,000 days can
help determine whether a mother and child survive pregnancy
and whether a child will contract a common childhood dis4 Briefing Paper, February 2012
• The Global Health Initiative supports partner countries
in strengthening their health systems to better fight infectious disease and improve nutrition, maternal and
child health, and access to safe water, with a particular
focus on improving the health of women, newborns,
and children. GHI is a multi-sectoral initiative that
encompasses integrated interagency programming in
health; it complements more specialized efforts such as
the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Feed the Future, the President’s Malaria Initiative, and Maternal and Child Health (MCH) programs.
Among the goals of GHI is reducing child malnutrition
by 30 percent in its target countries, to be accomplished
by scaling up immediate high-impact nutrition interventions, expanding medium-term interventions, and
tackling longer-term systems issues. The U.S. Agency
for International Development (USAID) has identified 17 core countries where 80 percent of the Global
Health & Child Survival funding mechanism nutrition
resources will be invested. Finally, in line with the SUN
Framework and Roadmap, the United States has identified “early riser” countries19 for improved joint donor
collaboration and financing mechanisms.
• The launch in 2010 of Feed the Future demonstrates
renewed commitment to agricultural development and
food security—and offers an opportunity to supplement
existing programs with new resources through a more
integrated nutrition approach. FTF focuses on reducing
global poverty and hunger through fostering sustainable growth in the agricultural sector and improving
the nutritional status of women and children in the focus countries.20 The focus countries were chosen on the
basis of their burden of malnutrition, prevalence and
characteristics of poverty, commitment to improving
nutrition, and opportunities for agriculture-led growth.
Table 2 (page 17) lists important recent milestones in global
efforts to devote more attention and resources to nutrition.