Brussels, 03/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - As part of a partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the European Commission is to mobilise €23.5 million to help in the fight against malnutrition in developing countries.
The news was announced by European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica at the European Development Days - which are putting great emphasis on food security and nutrition. Mimica reaffirmed the EU's resolve to help developing countries reduce the number of children suffering from chronic malnutrition by at least 7 million by 2025.
The Commission's new funding will be for national information platforms on nutrition (NIPN) - an innovative initiative that will offer the partner countries the necessary tools to better monitor progress in the reduction of malnutrition and to improve information and analysis about nutrition. The initiative should therefore enable the governments of these countries to develop more effective nutrition policies.
Six countries - Bangladesh, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Laos and Niger - have been selected for the experimental roll-out of the project.
The new partnership between the EU and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation primarily aims at implementing the NIPN in order to improve accountability and governance on nutrition. The NIPN will enable the stakeholders to coordinate and harmonise their support and improve its effectiveness.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will contribute €500,000 and the UK's Department for International Development will contribute £6.4 million.
The EU has already committed to allocating €3.5 billion to actions for improving nutrition by 2020. Malnutrition is the cause of half of all deaths among children under five. Ending hunger, ensuring food security and improving nutrition are among the sustainable development goals that are expected to be adopted by the United Nations in September as a follow-up to the millennium development goals. (Aminata Niang)