Bill Gates on how feeding children properly can transform global health

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. WHEN HISTORIANS write about the first quarter of the 21st century, they may sum it up this way: 20 years of unprecedented progress followed by five years of stagnation. This is true for nearly every issue the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works on, from poverty reduction to primary-school enrolment.

But nowhere is the contrast more stark or tragic than in health. Between 2000 and 2020 the world witnessed a global health boom. Child mortality fell by 50%.

In 2000 more than 10m children died every year, and now that number is fewer than 5m. The prevalence of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases fell by half, too. Best of all, the progress was happening in regions where the disease burden had been the highest.

Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia saw the most improvement. Then covid-19 hit, and progress came to a screeching halt. Today, the world is contending with more challenges than at any point in my adult life: inflation, debt, new wars.

It is also contending with the worst child-health crisis: malnutrition. Unfortunately, aid isn’t keeping pace with these needs, particularly in the places that need it the most. When a child dies, half the time the underlying cause is malnutrition.

Climate change is making the situation worse. Between 2024 and 2050, some 40m additional children will be stunted and 28m will suffer wasting as a result of climate change, according to new data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. These conditions, the most acute forms of malnutrition, mean children don’t grow mentally or physically to their full potential.