Author Archive for: UNSCN Secretariat

The UNICEF-WHO-World Bank Group team released new joint estimates for child stunting, overweight, underweight, wasting and severe wasting (March 2019 edition) using the same methodology as in previous years. These new estimates supersede former analyses results published by UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank Group. Note the entire time series is updated; for assessing changes over time, comparisons should be made based on the update time series.

Given that country data are at maximum available from surveys conducted in the year previous to when the modelling exercise takes place, in 2019 the joint estimates were derived up to 2018 with extrapolation for stunting until 2030. 

The key findings of the joint malnutrition estimates (2019 edition), interactive dashboard, joint data set, regional and global joint estimate tables (2019 edition) and updated 2019 regional classifications are available online.

Around 113 million people in 53 countries experienced acute food insecurity in 2018, compared to 124 million in 2017. However, the number of people in the world facing food crises has remained well over 100 million in the last three years, and the number of countries affected has risen. Moreover, an additional 143 million people in another 42 countries are just one step away from facing acute hunger.
Nearly two-thirds of those facing acute hunger are in just 8 countries: Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. In 17 countries, acute hunger either remained the same or increased. Climate and natural disasters pushed another 29 million people into acute food insecurity in 2018. And 13 countries - including North Korea and Venezuela - are not in the analysis because of data gaps.

The report's findings are a powerful call for strengthened cooperation that links together prevention, preparedness and response to address urgent humanitarian needs and root causes, which include climate change, economic shocks, conflict and displacement. It further highlights the need for a unified approach and action across the humanitarian and development dimensions of food crises, and for more investment in conflict mitigation and sustainable peace.

The Global Report is produced each year by the Global Network Against Food Crises, which is made up of international humanitarian and development partners. This year's report is being presented at a two-day high-level event, ‘Food and agriculture in times of crisis' (2-3 April 2019, Brussels), and will look at innovative approaches and solutions for preventing and addressing food crises, plus a roadmap for joint future action.

For more key findings from the report, see the Global Report fact sheet.

Full report

Call for papers is on Sustainable Food Systems and Diets - Deadline: 1 June 2019

The Global Food Security Journal is calling for papers on sustainable diets and food systems to help further the discussions and debate. Manuscript submissions could include sub-topics that cut across multiple spatial and time scales from global to local, that involve multiple demographic populations living in different environments (i.e. urban or rural), and that highlight multiple entry points across food systems (i.e. the middle of the value chain). Issues of equity, gender, economics, and behavioral economics, which the Commission report did not cover, will be considered.
Manuscript ideas or abstracts can be submitted to Editor-in-Chief, Jess Fanzo at jfanzo1@jhu.edu. Manuscripts should be a maximum of 4,000 words and should be framed as state-of-the-art reviews, perspectives opinions and debates that synthesize, extend or critique the potential of the achieving sustainable diets and food systems.

Call for Papers on “new technologies for food security and nutrition in the 21st century” - Deadline: 1 August 2019

Manuscript submissions should include the exploration, use, benefits and potential challenges of game-changing technologies that will transform food supply chains, consumer access to food, and even, utilization of foods across a range of high-, middle- and low-income countries. Technologies and innovation could cover artificial intelligence and machine learning, robotics, intelligent sensors, digital agriculture and nutrition tools, plant and nutri genomics (i.e. personalized nutrition), food tracking and tracing technologies, vertical farming and “agritechture,” bioeconomy, consumer apps and technology in improving access including acceptance, distribution, and shopping (ie walk in walk out technology and driver-less technology), smart phone food image recognition, microbiomics (soils, crops, animals and humans), and lab grown meats and alternative proteins to name just a few.
Manuscript ideas or abstracts can be submitted to Editor-in-Chief, Jess Fanzo at jfanzo1@jhu.edu. Manuscripts should be a maximum of 4,000 words, and should be framed as state of the art reviews of the new technology or perspectives opinions and debates that synthesize, extend or critique the potential of the technologies.

IFPRI’s flagship report reviews the major food policy issues, developments, and decisions of 2018, and considers challenges and opportunities for 2019 at the global and regional levels.

Rural people around the world continue to struggle with food insecurity, persistent poverty and inequality, and environmental degradation. This year’s Global Food Policy Report highlights the urgency of rural revitalization to address the crisis in rural areas.

Website

A child’s future health is largely determined in the first 1000 days after conception, meaning pregnancy + the first two years of childhood. Proper nutrition, birth type, breastfeeding during this period is very important and this is supported by many scientific works. Malnutrition in the first 1000 days not only leads to the risk of chronic diseases and psychiatric disorders, but also causes physical, mental and metabolic malfunctions, epigenetic changes and problems in brain development and functions. Maternal stress, unnecessary use of antibiotics or corticosteroids, and toxic exposures lead to the changes mother’s microbiota, weakens immune system, which in turn may cause increase in infections like diarrhea, pneumonia and other atopic diseases. Improper nutrition in the first 1000 days is one of the important factors that can increase mother-child death rate.

Despite all the socio-economic and cultural changes in developing countries, improper and insufficient nutrition are still remaining. Giving too many births, adolescent and late age pregnancies, time period less than two years between pregnancies, high rates of cesarean births, common use of antibiotics and glucocorticosteroids and lack of knowledge about nutrition, difficulties for reaching the essential nutrients, increased frequency of anemia and diabetes during pregnancy, increased cesarean delivery rates, even if the rate of breast feeding is high during the first 24 hours, and rapidly decreasing and early quitting of breast feeding is fairly high are problems which should be solved by us.

In line with these considerations, the “7th International Congress on Maternal, Infant, Nutrition in the First 1000 Days” will be held between 27-30 March 2019 at CVK Park Bosphorus Hotel in İstanbul, Turkey. We welcome you to view the organiser's website for more information.

UNSCN provided input to the thematic review of the United Nations High Level Political Forum (HLPF), which is set to take place at the UN headquarters in New York from 9 - 18 July 2019. The contribution is in line with the 2019 theme “Empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality” and provides guidance on how nutrition can be a connecting force between the SDGs and a catalyst to their achievement. It also emphasizes areas that require urgent attention and the need to accelerate progress in poverty eradication from a human rights-based approach.

The report is available here.