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- 10/21/08: Remarks by Henrietta Fore, Administrator, USAID and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance at the White House Development Summit
- 10/08/08: Remarks by Henrietta Fore, USAID Administrator and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance at The President's Freedom Agenda
- 10/01/08: Remarks by Henrietta H. Fore, Administrator, USAID and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance, at the Ceremony Marking the Full Operational Capacity of Africa Command (AFRICOM)
- 09/25/08: Remarks by Henrietta H. Fore, Administrator, USAID and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance, at 2008 Millennium Development Goal Malaria Summit, New York - "U.S. Leadership in the Fight Against Malaria"
- 09/22/08: Remarks by Henrietta H. Fore, Administrator, USAID and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance, at the White House Symposium on Advancing Global Literacy - "U.S. Commitment to Advancing Global Literacy"
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Remarks by Dr. Kent R. Hill
Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Global Health
Launch of the Lancet's Series on Maternal and Child Under-Nutrition
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues and friends: It is my great honor to join you this morning to help launch the Lancet Medical Journal series on Maternal and Child Under-nutrition.
According to the World Food Programme, 852 million chronically hungry people live in the world today; roughly half of them are children. Even though many children eat enough to fend off hunger, some do not get the nutrients they need for growth and development.
Women and children commonly make up the most vulnerable segment of societies with high rates of under-nutrition. Maternal and child under-nutrition is the underlying cause of about half of all child deaths under the age of 5 in poor countries.
Damage from hunger and malnutrition can be life-long, and the consequences are devastating birth defects, maternal death, childhood mortality, blindness, anemia and increased vulnerability to infections. Almost all nutritional deficiencies impair immune function and other host defenses leading to a cycle of longer lasting and more severe infections and ever-worsening nutritional status. Iodine deficiency lowers a child's intelligence, and vitamin A deficiencies make children more vulnerable to disease.
Nutritional well being is a central component for human, social and economic development and leads to an impressive range of benefits including improved survival, health, cognitive development, and work capacity. Improving the health and nutrition of those living in the poorest countries of the world is a focal point of USAID's global health and nutrition program and key to reducing crippling healthcare costs and increasing national productivity. For more than 30 years, USAID has supported programs to prevent malnutrition, stunting, and micronutrient deficiencies.
USAID spends about $30 million a year for nutrition programs to include Vitamin A, iodine, food fortification, anemia packages, and zinc.
The U.S. is also the largest food aid donor in the world, and the largest single contributor to the World Food Programme. The U.S. procures, ships, stores, distributes, monitors and evaluates approximately 2.5 million metric tons of U.S. food aid each year worth over $1 billion.
Between 40 and 50% of Title II non-emergency resources support multi-year community-based maternal and child health and nutrition programs
Through the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), USAID is directly supporting twenty-two programs in nineteen countries around the world that fortify staple foods and condiments like fish sauce in Vietnam and cottonseed oil in Burkina Faso with iron, iodine, vitamin A and other micronutrients. Food Fortification is extremely important and cost-effective. Every $1 spent on vitamin A fortification returns $7 in increased wages and decreased disability. A dollar spent on iodized salt returns $28; iron fortification, $84.
At USAID, our philosophy is that improved health for the world's poorest people is not only a moral imperative but also a pragmatic investment for peace, security, and worldwide economic growth. Health is strategically important to the success of virtually every other aspect of a development portfolio.
Health status is the single greatest indicator of poverty. Good health lies at the base of stable workforces and productive economies. Good health is also essential for democracy to thrive, since no democracy will be supported or can even be considered successful if it does not invest in its people. This notion of "investing in people" is intrinsic within the culture that we live. We are aware that the problems of under-nutrition in the world cannot be solved by one organization or by organizations working independently of each other.
In a globalized world there are no single-actor solutions that can bring about sustained results. This is particularly relevant to the challenges of under-nutrition. Public-private partnerships unite the unique skills and resources of each partner and apply them to development challenges for sustainable solutions. This is why we have embraced them as an effective business model for USAID to carry out its core mission.
Since 2001, our public-private partnership initiative - the Global Development Alliance - has created more than 600 public-private alliances with over 1700 partners. Private investment in these partnerships is more than double the taxpayers' contributions. Expanding and deepening such partnerships is one of leadership's highest priorities at USAID fundamental question before the U.S., indeed all international donors, must be: "how can we most successfully leverage our partnerships to achieve maximum impact and effectiveness to advance global health?"
Forging a strong alliance of collaborators from among national governments, international agencies, the private sector, and other sectors of civil society has been an important piece of USAID nutrition programs. As we look ahead, USAID will increase its efforts to work with other agencies and host country counterparts in food and nutrition policy, strategy and program development in assisted countries in order to improve equity and health benefits.
We do so because coordinated efforts in public health have resulted in marked declines in infant and child mortality, a narrowing of the of gap between desired and actual family size, and increases in life expectancy that almost match the rates of developed countries, particularly in Asia and Latin America.
It is my hope that this series of papers, bringing together the wealth of information on nutrition, will help to raise awareness, expand, and deepen support for maternal and child nutrition at the donor, policy and programmatic levels in countries that face the most serious nutrition challenges. Thank you for the invitation to be with you at this meeting.
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