Malnutrition is the leading cause of death for kids under the age of five each year. For kids who survive, malnutrition in the early years can cause lifelong and irreversible impacts on cognitive and physical development.
Although addressing malnutrition is foundational to achieving broader objectives in global health and development, it has been persistently underfunded, receiving less than one percent of Official Development Assistance globally. The list of philanthropies investing in malnutrition remains far too narrow.
Proven, cost-effective solutions to prevent and treat deadly malnutrition – like the Power 4 – are ready to be scaled. Doing so will save and improve lives. But history shows it won’t just happen. This new award will allow us to move at double speed to sustainably scale the things we have long known work.
While our resources are growing, our focus and approach will remain steady. We will continue to push firmly for dedicated scale-up of the most proven and most cost-effective malnutrition solutions, with a special focus on life-saving prenatal vitamins (multiple micronutrient supplements, or MMS) and wasting treatment. We will continue our leadership role for global malnutrition advocacy in the US and the UK.
This new award will also afford us the ability to expand our efforts. We will help build a global movement to ensure that every pregnant woman has access to lifesaving prenatal vitamins. We look forward to soon announcing a number of focus countries, where ECF will support research, advocacy, and catalytic scale-up of Power 4 interventions at the national and sub-national level. And, we will expand our proven advocacy approaches to recruit new donor champions for malnutrition and help ensure limited resources are spent on the most cost-effective solutions.
In the year ahead, we are looking forward to sustaining existing, high-impact relationships while also cultivating new partnerships to drive progress. We hope you’ll join us in this effort! While grant proposals are by invitation only, we want to get to know you and hear your ideas. And, we’re hiring!
Photo Credit: © UNICEF/UN0345143/Wilson
