Ida Odinga rallies first ladies at UN

NEW YORK, Monday

The wife of Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Mrs Ida Odinga, on Monday convened the First Ladies of Africa Roundtable to push for an end to malnutrition among women and children.

The event was organised as part of the opening of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit.

The invitation-only occasion, hosted by Ms Judith Rodin of the Rockefeller Foundation and Ms Jay Naidoo of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, brought together First Ladies of Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia and Côte d’Ivoire.

The African First Ladies signed a declaration with six key goals committing themselves to putting nutrition at the heart of development.

“Malnutrition destroys young bodies and minds, harms education and work performance and ultimately damages communities.

“Nowhere is this more apparent than in Africa. We know the solutions to prevent this cycle, and it is urgent that we, as women and as leaders, set our goals in action,” Mrs Odinga said.

Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition’s Ms Naidoo said: “Quite simply, it is our moral obligation to tackle the dire situation of undernutrition on this planet. Real, concerted actions and efforts to reduce undernutrition in women and children are critical if we are to successfully achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

“The declaration that was signed today is therefore most meaningful to us, in its open commitment to build this strong global movement.”

Undernutrition is one of the world’s most serious but least addressed problems.

An estimated 200 million children suffer from chronic undernutrition worldwide, which kills an estimated 3.5 million of them annually and contributes to more than a third of all deaths in children under the age of five.

About 60 per cent of the world’s chronically hungry people are women.

While undernutrition is a critical human development issue across the globe, it is especially prevalent in Africa, where one in four people suffer from malnutrition and 40 per cent are stunted. (Agencies)