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Global Food Crisis Harms Children Worldwide
Westport, Conn. (June 19, 2008) — Save the Children is making an urgent global appeal to help an estimated 900,000 people, including 325,000 children in Ethiopia, and others around the world who are bearing the brunt of a severe food price crisis.
The aid organization's emergency response is focusing on the food crisis in 6 of the worst-affected areas in Ethiopia and will include reaching nearly 50,000 children with life-saving high-energy foods through emergency feeding centers. The Ethiopian government's own estimates show that at least 75,000 children are severely malnourished and could die if they do not receive immediate emergency treatment.
"Malnutrition rates in Ethiopia, already alarmingly high in some areas, are on the rise," said Charles MacCormack, president and CEO of Save the Children, based in Westport, Conn. "A prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa and the recent dramatic rise in food prices are making it difficult for families to feed themselves."
"The poorest households are now resorting to drastic actions to meet their food needs," MacCormack said. "Families are pulling their children from school because they cannot afford both food and school fees; putting their children to work; reducing spending on child health care; and selling key productive assets including farm animals, equipment, and tools."
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Families in southern Ethiopia affected by severe drought wait outside to receive maize during a food distribution, June 9, 2008. REUTERS/Radu Sigheti,courtesy www.alertnet.org |
MacCormack noted that young children, especially those under the age of 2, are the most vulnerable to the impacts of prolonged hunger — which can not only result in weight loss, but makes children more susceptible to illness. In the longer term, hunger and severe malnutrition result in permanent negative effects on physical and cognitive growth, from which children never recover.
Save the Children's emergency work includes:
- Helping support the government's Productive Safety Net Program, which assists 7-8 million individuals in drought-affected areas;
- Providing about 48,000 children in emergency feeding centers with high-energy foods as part of an intensive feeding program;
- Helping approximately 250,000 children and their families to keep their animals alive by providing veterinary drugs and animal feed;
- Providing nearly 160,000 children with emergency health care, clean water, and sanitation items; and
- Setting up work schemes that will provide parents with a way to earn food and money.
Background
A combination of drought and escalating food prices has left 4.6 million people urgently in need of food in Ethiopia. Around 759,000 of these are children under the age of five, a group which is particularly vulnerable to the effects of malnutrition such as weight loss and disease.
Save the Children has been working in Ethiopia since 1974 to secure immediate and sustainable improvements in the lives of children. The agency has programs in all regions of the country, encompassing the areas of health and HIV, education, food security and livelihoods, water and sanitation, and child protection.
Save the Children has decades of emergency relief experience around the world, working collaboratively with governments and communities to prepare for, respond and recover from disasters through programs that focus on emergency nutrition, health, water and sanitation, and agricultural and animal health interventions.
The Agency's worldwide food distribution programs provide carefully targeted relief in emergency contexts. The reduced availability of food aid, needs to be fully addressed as the number of at risk populations increases. Save the Children's long-term programs also play a critical role in mitigating the food crisis. Two key programs — Food Security and Hunger and Malnutrition — aim to ensure that children live in food-secure households and are well-nourished.
Read More about our response to the global food crisis.
