Devex Dish: A big development for malnutrition treatment

This week I’m bringing you the latest in the long saga of malnutrition treatment reform, a topic I’ve been tracking closely for years now. The World Health Organization is finally out with its guidelines on the prevention and treatment of wasting, aka low weight, often caused by inadequate food supply. This sounds incredibly wonky and specific — and believe me, the 188-page PDF is both of those things. (Without a medical background, I found much of the technical language to be nearly incomprehensible.) But this really matters because it has a direct impact on how many children can be reached with lifesaving treatment, which could prevent them from starving to death. Kids are still dying not because we don’t know how to treat them, but because there isn’t enough money to reach everyone who needs it. I obtained a copy of the guidelines document when it was put on a research platform used by WHO but not available publicly, so many in the malnutrition treatment community were still digesting the content of the massive, and incredibly technical, document. I’ll be bringing you further analysis of how it will affect the sector, including implementers and malnutrition treatment manufacturers, after they’ve had some time to determine how it may influence their operations. For now, more on why this matters: WHO is responsible for setting global standards on the treatment of diseases. NGOs, but especially national health ministries, look to the body for best practices of exactly how they should provide treatment to starving children. But WHO guidelines haven’t been updated in over a decade and since then, there’s been a ton of research into different courses, known as “simplified approaches.” These experiment with ways to provide treatment products of different formulas, quantities, and durations, with the goal of reaching more children with less money and saving more lives. “There’s a lot of research and there’s a lot of change that has happened in the past decade-plus in this field. Researchers and aid organizations like Action Against Hunger have been carrying out a lot of studies in the field,” Heather Stobaugh, a global nutrition researcher at Action Against Hunger, tells me. “It just feels like a long time coming for those of us who have been conducting a lot of pilots or new research then see it being reviewed by WHO.” One important change in the guidelines is the inclusion of moderate acute malnutrition, which Stobaugh says will hopefully help those children get the treatment they need as ministries of health make plans to reach them. Read: WHO releases updated malnutrition treatment guidelines Qu Qu train FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu was reelected on Sunday, winning 168 out of 172 votes cast. The outcome is hardly a surprise, since the Chinese national was, in the end, running unopposed. You’ll remember a few months ago when I previewed the election, only two challengers were initially announced. Neither could have been classified as a strong threat to Qu’s charge at a second term: One hailed from Iraq and the other from Tajikistan, two countries with little clout in international fora. China lobbied hard among U.N. member states to put Qu at the helm of FAO in 2019, with speculation the country used its Belt and Road Initiative — which involves large investments in infrastructure in low-income countries — as leverage to pressure them into voting for Qu. Arguments from the West that putting China in charge of FAO was dangerous ultimately did nothing to dissuade a majority of countries from voting for Qu. He’ll now be at the helm of the agency until 2027, solidifying China’s influence over a key cog in the global food security machine as low-income countries continue to struggle with high inflation and availability issues for key staples, partially caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A press release put out by FAO following the election, which took place at its annual conference — ongoing this week — highlighted several of Qu’s initiatives and reforms “to overhaul the Organization’s business model, improving efficiency and implementing best practices that support programme and administrative effectiveness.” It also highlighted his creation of the World Food Forum, which some see as an unnecessary event taking away from existing gatherings meant to accomplish similar goals. ICYMI: Here's who's running to lead the Food and Agriculture Organization (Pro) Spending cuts My colleague Rob Merrick, Devex’s U.K. correspondent, tells me Save the Children has condemned the U.K. government’s record on tackling global hunger, after a new analysis found U.K. aid spending on malnutrition plunged by 61.3% from 2020 to 2021. The organization Development Initiatives crunched the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office’s figures to also show the proportion of its aid allocated to nutrition fell to 7% from 8.5% in 2020 — the lowest share since 2012. Save the Children said the fall took place as the number of hungry people in the world soared from 135 million in 2019 to 345 million in 2022, because of a “deadly combination of conflict, the climate emergency, Covid-19, and the cost-of-living crisis.” “Disproportionately cutting aid to tackle malnutrition when children are facing a global hunger crisis was a seismic error,” says Callum Northcote, head of hunger and nutrition at Save the Children UK. “This work is amongst the most effective in ending preventable deaths and the UK previously had a track record of success.” Go Pro Join us for a week of exclusive conversations with people shaping the future of development! 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Chew on this Increased milk consumption can help reduce stunting, with researchers calling for additional investment in dairy to decrease the number of stunted children. [IFPRI] WHO’s cancer research agency will reportedly classify aspartame, used in Diet Coke, as a “possible carcinogen” this month. [Reuters] A new FAO report on how microplastics affect gut health concluded that more research is needed. [FAO]