Action Plan for Malnutrition Control in Africa

Action Plan for Malnutrition Control in Africa

Brazzaville, 5 December 2006 -- Malnutrition has reached alarming proportions particularly among vulnerable groups. Each year, 3.5 million children aged below 5 years die of malnutrition in the African region.

In an opening statement he delivered at the meeting of experts on the Nutrition Strategy of the African Region, the Representative and Permanent Secretary of the Minister of Health and Population of the Congo, Mr Jean Ignace Tendelet, said that “On average, 28% of children aged below 5 years are underweight, as opposed to 5% in central and eastern Europe. Thirty-eight per cent of children in that same age group have stunted growth, as against 14% in central and eastern Europe”.

Mr Tendelet expressed the hope that the meeting of experts would come up with a malnutrition reference document for use by African countries.

The meeting, jointly organized by African Union and WHO, is intended to help develop a plan of action for effective implementation of the regional strategy and to reach an agreement on the roles and responsibilities of the main stakeholders in the implementation of the Regional Strategy. The experts at the meeting will also draw up and adopt a schedule of implementation of the action plan.

The main purpose of the strategy is to sensitize African leaders to the essential role that food security and food safety play in achieving sustainable socioeconomic development.

Officials of the World Bank, FAO, WFP, UNICEF, WHO and AU are unanimous in their contention that hunger and malnutrition are unacceptable. They have therefore called for universal mobilization and urged the countries to play a leadership role in malnutrition control.

For his part, the AU Representative, Dr Thomas Bisika, highlighted the aggravating factors of malnutrition in the region, especially poverty which affects more than half of the population, and HIV/AIDS which, in the absence of adequate treatment and balanced and healthy diet, considerably weakens the immune system.

Other aggravating factors of malnutrition are complex emergencies and limited availability of quality care even though solutions to malnutrition problems in the African region exist.

The WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Gomes Sambo, has advocated appropriate action to promote nutrition and food security based, among other factors, on integrating nutrition in health policies and programmes; creating a nutrition-friendly environment in the ministries including greater efforts to increase the number of nutritionists available; cutting back on inappropriate dietary practices especially among the vulnerable groups (children, adolescents, pregnant women, people living with HIV).

Apart from the World Bank, WFP and UNICEF, other partners that are attending the Brazzaville meeting are UNAIDS, West African Health Organization, Africa 2010, Regional Economic Communities and Helen Keller International. Twenty-nine countries in the African Region are also participating in the meeting.

The meeting started on Monday and will end on Thursday, 7 December 2006.


For more information contact:

Technical contact

Dr Funke Bogunjoko 

Regional Adviser for Nutrition 

Tel : 00 47241 39264 

Email: bogunjokof [at] afro.who.int

Media Contact 

Flavienne Issembè Public Information and Communication Unit 

Tel: 00 47241 39352 

Email: issembef [at] afro.who.int