The Gender Nutrition Gap is significant & worsening.
More than 1 billion women and adolescent girls worldwide suffer from undernutrition, including the lifelong consequences of wasting and stunting, and micronutrient deficiencies, including anaemia. Undernourished mothers have a higher risk of giving birth to small and vulnerable newborns, with immediate and long-term ramifications for individual and societal development and growth. Today, approximately 20 million infants are born with low birthweight globally, and 73% of all low birthweight infants reside in South Asia and Central, East, West and Southern Africa.
To urgently address this, more than 40 organisations, including Emergency Nutrition Network, have signed up to the Closing the Gender Nutrition Gap: An Action Agenda for women and girls, demanding rapid and urgent change to the global systems generating unfair outcomes for women and girls. The actions call for political accountability, powerful leadership and sustained investment so that all women and girls – and their potential – are nourished.
The Action Agenda, coordinated by FHI Solutions, and the wider campaign itself, the Gender Nutrition Gap has been co-created with and is being supported by a growing coalition of partners, including ENN, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“The collaboration of so many agencies within the humanitarian and development communities is crucial at this time. The Action Agenda framework is designed to guide coordinated actions addressing the complex interplay of economic disparities and discriminatory practices that exacerbate gender-related malnutrition” says Philip James, Senior Technical Associate at ENN.
The Action Agenda aims to inspire decision-makers at global, regional, and national levels, including donors, governments, local and international nongovernmental organizations and the private sector to join forces to prioritise women’s and girl’s nutrition and to take concrete, priority actions toward shared goals.
Read more about ENN's work in women's nutrition .