|
The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that over 840 million people - about one sixth of the population of the world’s developing nations - are malnourished. Over 200 million of them are children. The unavailability of food in the region where people live, and people’s lack of access to food in sufficient quantities and quality to meet basic daily needs is often compounded by health and sanitation problems resulting in malnutrition. For urban dwellers, the problem is a basic one of>poverty. For children of rural subsistence farming families, the problem is often an inability to produce and store enough food, combined in both cases with poor access to health services and/or poor health practices.
Malnutrition, and in extreme cases, stunting, is evidence of the permanent physical harm done to children and their future potential to live healthy and productive lives. Poor climatic conditions and inadequate agricultural inputs and practices; economic stresses; lack of opportunity; inadequate health care; poor sanitary conditions and practices; lack of education; displacement; and civil unrest; are among the many specific causes of food and livelihood insecurity for children and their families.
