CARE Hails Administration's 1,000-Day Hunger Plan as a Turning Point

U.S. Strategy Focuses on Nutrition of Pregnant Women, Young Children

NEW YORK, Sept. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- CARE President and CEO Helene Gayle was among those applauding Tuesday as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled a plan to combat child malnutrition and hunger by focusing on the first 1,000 days of life.

In her speech before a UN summit designed to speed progress toward Millennium Development Goals, Clinton laid out details of a strategy she announced in May at CARE's national conference. It targets the roughly 1,000-day period that begins with pregnancy and runs through the second year of a child's life, a critical interval that CARE has dubbed the "window of opportunity" in programming that improves nutrition for expectant mothers, new mothers and young children.

"Malnutrition is a silent epidemic, particularly among mothers and young children," Dr. Gayle said after Secretary Clinton's remarks in New York. "It's the number one risk to global health, killing more people than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. I think Secretary Clinton's message today was clear: don't treat hunger – prevent it. The first 1,000 days is a window of opportunity to save millions of lives."

While hunger and undernutrition persist with little attention around much of the globe, disasters such as the devastating floods in Pakistan often bring it to the surface. The World Health Organization is reporting that 30 to 50 percent of children showing up at clinics there suffer from acute malnutrition, indicating a preexisting nutrition problem in some rural parts of Pakistan.

Hunger in general has been stubbornly persistent around the globe. World leaders set a Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of hungry people by 2015, from 1990 levels. But the reality is that we have even more hungry people today than we did 20 years ago.

The good news is that the greatest gains can be made by focusing on the poorest, most vulnerable populations, including women and children. CARE continues to ramp up programs that do just this, whether by training breastfeeding counselors in the Dadaab refugee camps of Kenya or by helping new mothers overcome cultural taboos that prevent healthy eating in Nicaragua.

When speaking at CARE's national conference earlier this year, Secretary Clinton asked for continued support. "CARE has spent decades promoting effective, innovative strategies for nutrition, women's health, children's health, agricultural development, and other related issues," she said. "Many of the best ideas for how to solve this problem have been conceived by or refined through the work of CARE and its partners."

On Tuesday, Dr. Gayle said CARE stands ready to help. "We've found that focusing on the first 1,000 days is smart for a variety reasons," she said. "It can mean improved learning and economic development. As a poverty-fighting organization, CARE will be there to support this strategy – from Day One."

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About CARE: CARE fights root causes of poverty in the world's poorest communities. CARE places special focus on working alongside poor women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty. In 72 countries, women are at the heart of CARE's community-based efforts to improve education, health and economic opportunity. Last year, CARE and our partners helped more than 59 million people effect real, positive changes in their lives.

SOURCE CARE