<em>Millions of children are threatened by death, if not immediate measures are taken to combat the global hunger crisis, six of the world's largest children's aid organizations warn.</em>
Berlin/Hamburg, August 17, 2022 - The world is faced with a hunger and nutritional crisis of an unprecedented extent: With every minute, another child suffers from severe malnutrition and eight million children in 15 countries affected by the crisis are threatened by death. In total, almost 50 million people worldwide are affected by hunger. In view of this terrible number, only determined action can avert the devastating and lifelong effects on health, nutrition, education, protection and survival of children.
We, those responsible for the six largest international NGOs with children's focus have come together in the Joining Forces Alliance to express our common concerns about the devastating effects on children.
Hunger is avoidable and has no place in the 21st century. In 2017 we showed that our joint action was able to avert the famine in Somalia. As an international community, we have a collective responsibility to ensure that measures are urgently taken to prevent the death of hundreds of thousands of children. We cannot wait for a famine to be officially proclaimed before we act. In 2011, 260,000 people paid for their lives at the famine in Somalia. Half of all fatalities were children under the age of five.
As organizations that work directly with children, families and communities around the world, we see every day the devastating tribute the reinforcing effects of conflicts, climate change and covid-19 as well as the aftermath of the conflict in Ukraine are demanding. The hunger and nutritional crisis already has profound consequences for children: it threatens the survival and protection of children and increases the risk of severe and acute malnutrition. Children are exposed to an increased risk of violence, exploitation and abuse because they cancel school, do forced labor, are recruited and used by armed forces or armed groups and are separated by their families. Children without parental care are particularly susceptible to nutritional uncertainty and their diverse effects. Child, early and forced marriages, early pregnancy, school abortion, sexual exploitation and abuse endanger girls. When food is scarce, girls and women often eat less and the last one.
The rights and needs of children must come first when coping with this crisis. We can't just continue as before. The reaction must orientate itself to the needs and hopes of the children and strengthen young people as actors in change. Governments and encoders urgently need to act in order to save human lives and to protect children from lifelong negative consequences for millions of children. Nutritional security is not a privilege, but a right that is anchored in the general explanation of the human rights of 1948. International leadership and political will have to drive an immediate reaction as well as the causes of hunger, such as conflicts, economic shocks, climate change and unequal access to agricultural resources, through joint and locally operated solutions.
We undertake to work with governments and donors to ensure that the needs of children are primarily taken into account by a gender -specific, cross -sector reaction in the areas of nutritional security, nutrition, health, water, education, protection and social protection. In this way we can fight the effects of the nutritional crisis and at the same time protect life and strengthen resilience against lengthy crises.
Joining Forces is an alliance of the six worldwide largest international NGOs who work with and for children to maintain their rights and to ensure their security. The CEOs are: Meg Gardinier, Childfund Alliance ; Stephen Omollo, Plan International ; Inger Ashing, Save the Children International ; Ingrid Johansen, SOS Children's Villages International ; Valérie Ceccherini, Terre des Hommes ; Andrew Morley, World Vision .