Kenya Launches Campaign To End Child Hunger And Malnutrition

 

World Vision Kenya has launched a Global campaign dubbed” ENOUGH” that aims to end child hunger and malnutrition in the Country.

The initiative seeks to address the alarming prevalence of food insecurity, ensuring every child has access to nutritious food for their well-being and development.

In 2023 an estimated 942,000 children aged under-5 and 135,000 pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers were acutely malnourished and in need of treatment in Kenya.

The National Director World Vision Kenya, Gilbert Kamanga said that they will be intensifying their advocacy and collaboration efforts to work with government, partners and communities to develop and implement sustainable solutions.

“We must prioritise awareness, community resilience, and long-term strategies to address the root cause of hunger. No child in Kenya should die from hunger and malnutrition”, he said, noting that more needs to be done to address the malnutrition challenge in the country.

Kamanga said this will be in line with the Government’s commitment to enhance the school meals programme initiative by working with multiple stakeholders to find innovative and sustainable funding sources for school meals and expand the coverage from the current 1.9 million children to universal coverage by 2030.

The Campaign, he added, also calls for improved data collection, climate-smart agriculture, and policy reforms even as the Government plans to establish a national policy on school meals by June 2023.

Dr David Githanga, Board Chair of World Vision Kenya said that despite advancements, the statistics remain staggering and that globally up to 783 million people faced hunger in 2022, with Kenya bearing its share of the burden. Our vision is a world where every child enjoys enough nourishing food,” he added

He explained that last year, World Vision Kenya invested over Sh 13 billion with more than half dedicated to projects directly contributing to food and nutrition security, benefiting 1.9 million children and 1.5 million adults.

Through integrated health programmes, the organisation operated in 21 counties, focusing on child protection, and disease prevention.

Additionally, humanitarian efforts provided vital assistance to 1.3 million individuals affected by emergencies, with over 780,000 children receiving life-saving aid.

Lilian Dodzo, Regional Leader, World Vision East Africa Region said, “children in Kenya and across Africa are counting on us to join together as we call for ENOUGH nutritious food for every child, sourced ethically and sustainably, enabling them to flourish always and everywhere”.

First Lady Rachel Ruto who was the chief guest during the launch lauded World Vision for the initiative, noting that advocating for enough nutritious food for every child, both at home and in school, through ethical and sustainable sourcing is commendable.

“There’s no greater indignity than children attending school hungry. We’ve made significant strides, reducing stunting from 26 percent in 2014 to 18 percent in 2022. Overall, nutrition has improved. Yet, 847,000 Kenyan children under five face acute malnutrition, down 14.5 percent from 2023,” she said.

Mrs Ruto noted that all must unite to scale interventions in food security, health, nutrition, and finance to reach the goal of less than 5 percent childhood wasting by 2025.

The Campaign will be running for the next three years and will aim to improve nutritional status of vulnerable children in the country through targeted interventions of reducing hunger in the most affected communities.

Conflict, climate shocks, rising cost of living, and declining food production have all contributed to food scarcity and high food prices.

According to the 2023 Global Hunger Index (GHI), Kenya ranks 90th out of the 125 countries with sufficient data to calculate 2023 GHI scores. With a score of 22.0, Kenya has a level of hunger that is serious.

Kenya is the second country, after Ethiopia, to launch its national ENOUGH Campaign.

On September 20, 2023 WVI launched its global ENOUGH campaign at a side event during the UN General Assembly in New York, USA where World Vision committed and announced a global commitment of USD3.4 billion as part of its new global campaign,

The campaign is to focus on reducing hunger and improving nutrition for 125 million children across 67 countries where they are suffering most, 27 of those countries are in Africa, and 9 are in the African region, including parts of Kenya.

By Wangari Ndirangu