The UN World Food Program or WFP is marking World Food Day highlighting the power of nutrition to transform individuals, societies and economies.
In a press release the UN agency pointed out the need to make nutrition central to all development efforts.
WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin said undernourished girls and boys face barriers in health, school performance that later, in the workplace limit their human potential and capacity to contribute to the society.
She added that ‘prioritising nutrition today is an investment in our collective global future. The investment must involve food, agriculture, health and education systems.’
The statement added that today some 842 million people in the world suffer from chronic hunger and more than two billion people lack the vitamins and minerals needed to live healthy lives.
WFP Country Director Chris Nikoi said in South Sudan this year the organisation delivered special food supplements to treat and prevent undernutrition to 400 thousand children, pregnant women and nursing mothers.
He added that WFP nutrition programmes are designed to combat children’s illness and death and to ensure that undernourished pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers get sufficient nutrients and calories.