WaterAid calls for end to malnutrition ahead of Rio Olympics
The race to end malnutrition requires clean water, good sanitation and good hygiene, WaterAid has said, calling for action as world leaders meet in Rio to open the Olympic Games.
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WaterAid’s new report, ‘Caught Short’, looks at stunting from malnutrition around the world and the links to low rates of access to clean water and good sanitation.
Currently, 159 million children in the world are stunted as a result of malnutrition, their cognitive and physical growth damaged irreversibly by their inability to obtain and absorb the nutrients they need.
Some 50 per cent of malnutrition is linked to infections, worm infestations and diarrhoeal illnesses caused by dirty water, poor sanitation and a lack of hygiene, including handwashing with soap.
In Ghana, 18.8 per cent of children under five are suffering from stunted growth. Some 11 per cent do not have access to clean water and 85 per cent do not have access to sanitation.
WaterAid’s Country Director in Ghana, Afia Zakiya, said, “The evidence is clear: children’s health and future potential are compromised when they have no choice but to grow up without clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene practices. Even if children survive their dangerous early years, repeated bouts of diarrhoea early in life are likely to leave them stunted, leaving Ghana and Africa as a whole deprived of a new generation of great leaders, thinkers and athletes. World leaders have promised to end malnutrition and deliver water and sanitation to everyone, everywhere by 2030. They must keep their promises – one cannot be met without the other.
Ahead of the Olympics, leaders and prominent current and former Olympians will meet in Rio on August 4 to bring attention to the importance of good nutrition.
WaterAid supporter, Zambian athlete and Olympic medallist Samuel Matete, said, “In my work promoting sports among children, the difference between children who have clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene at home, and those who don’t, is very clear. What is most upsetting is that typhoid, cholera and malnutrition are preventable, and we have the tools to do this. Water is life, and sanitation is dignity, and we must deliver these to everyone, even the world’s poorest, as part of the race to end malnutrition.”
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For more information, visit www.wateraid.org, follow @WaterAidUK on Twitter, or Facebook at www.facebook.com/wateraid. Contact Kafui Nyaku (Communications and Campaigns Officer) on 0209989518 or Chaka Uzondu (Head of Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns) on 0209985828