Bioversity International welcomes Olympic challenge on malnutrition

Bruce Cogill, Bioversity International Programme Leader, Nutrition and Marketing Diversity, embraces the call for renewed global efforts to reduce the number of children stunted by malnutrition:

"On Sunday, UK Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to join Brazil’s Vice President Michel Temer in closing the London 2012 Olympics with a challenge to world leaders to work together to significantly reduce the number of children stunted by malnutrition before the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics.

Just as the Olympics inspire us to greatness, Brazil has inspired all of us by making tremendous gains in reducing hunger for its people. This is a challenge that can be achieved.

Children affected by stunting cannot reach their full potential. It is estimated that stunting undermines the growth, development, health and productivity of over around 170 million children in developing countries. Stunting is the result of poverty, inequity and a prolonged poor diet and illness that often starts before birth and can continue over generations.

Bioversity International welcomes this renewed effort to reduce malnutrition by the next Olympics – a goal worthy of a gold medal. But how can we achieve it? There is no magic bullet that can offer a quick fix to the problem. It’s much more complicated.

We have to engage the communities where the malnutrition occurs. We need to understand their needs and the practicalities of peoples’ lives. We need to take what we already know and participate with communities to learn from one another. We need to go beyond educating people – we need to find solutions together. This requires scientists, policymakers, civic groups, industry and the people who deal with the consequences of malnutrition working as a team. This is a race where the silver medal is just not good enough.

Ultimately, it comes down to several questions: What do we value as humans? What makes our life fuller? What is important within our own culture? These are the things – and the foods and food environment – that we value.

The London Olympics 2012 torch has been a symbol of how to overcome political, cultural and financial differences to bring together 204 nations with a common goal. Tackling malnutrition will require a similar combined effort as well as the tools that science has afforded us. By pulling together, we have already seen success in tackling the great challenges of infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and the scourge of certain nutrient deficiencies. Bringing together knowledge, political will and science will also have powerful implications for reducing malnutrition.

But this effort will have look beyond just providing food. It will need to ensure that food is nutritious and accessible to those who need it. It will need to address infectious diseases caused by poor sanitation and hygiene and inadequate health services. It demands improved education for children along with better feeding and care practices such as breastfeeding. These are not unfamiliar approaches and technologies but ones that are often neglected for many reasons.

Improving the quality of the diet is essential but it must be done with a view to ensuring ecological sustainability as well as identifying culturally appropriate foods that meet nutritional needs and are also accessible.  Putting that knowledge together is the basis for understanding and promoting sustainable diets, which are diverse, accessible, culturally-sensitive, healthy, and which can reverse malnutrition.

World leaders need to help us take a unified approach that engages farmers, industry, consumers, regulators and educators on this long-distance quest, not just try and grab the quick glory of a 100m sprint.

By challenging us all, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has evoked the Olympic spirit shown throughout the Games to do something about a problem that should be a thing of the past.  As the Olympic torch starts its long journey to Brazil in 2016, the launch of this renewed global effort to reduce stunting must be applauded as enthusiastically as every athlete who competed at London 2012.

We accept this challenge to engage science and multiple disciplines in a concerted effort to tackle stunting by understanding and improving diets that reduce malnutrition and are sustainable."

Bruce Cogill is Programme Leader, Nutrition and Marketing Diversity, at Bioversity International. 

Bioversity International is a member of the CGIAR  [2] Consortium and a partner with Rome-based food and agriculture agencies Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO  [3]), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD  [4]) and World Food Programme (WFP  [5]).