WASHINGTON — Worldwide child malnutrition will decline by 20 percent by 2020, but 132 million children still won't have enough food to grow up healthy, a new report forecasts.
Improved crop yields, slowing population growth and increased international trade will contribute to the decline, says the report, "2020 Global Food Outlook," written by the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington.
Latin America is expected to eliminate almost all of its child malnutrition, and China will reduce it by half, the report projects. India will improve somewhat, yet still be home to one-third of the world's malnourished children. These improvements will be made as the world's population increases from 6 billion to 7.5 billion, the report predicts.
However, sub-Saharan Africa will get worse, with the number of malnourished children increasing by 18 percent to 39 million, the report says.
Today, "one-third of all children in sub-Saharan Africa continue to go to bed hungry and have their mental and physical development compromised by the ravages of hunger," it says.
While drought and other climate conditions cannot be predicted, changes in government policy, such as free trade and about $10 billion a year in increased spending on agricultural research, health care and education, could more than double the rate of the decline, the report says.
"Progress in reducing child malnutrition is unconscionably slow," Per Pinstrup-Andersen of Denmark, director general of the institute, said in a statement. "Yet we have the power to change that."
The Washington-based institute was formed to study food issues affecting the developing world and receives financial support from private donations worldwide, as well as a number of governments and public organizations, including the World Bank and the United Nations.
To prevent the worsening conditions in sub-Saharan Africa, governments will have to promote modern farming methods, such as using fertilizer and irrigation, to improve crop yields, and provide roads, clean water and education, the report says. These are needed to move the region from subsistence farming to a system of modern commercial agriculture.
"Without progress here, the world will only make a small dent in the global burden of malnutrition," the report says.
The report also calls for liberalization of the food trade by removing tariffs and subsidies that promote domestic production over foreign-grown food. A free market food economy would promote growth and investment in food production in the developing world, the report argues.
Child malnutrition worldwide has dropped since the 1960s, even as the world's population has increased, thanks to improved farming methods and trade. By the late 1990s, there were some 166 million malnourished children in the world, the report says.
Malnutrition in children stunts their growth, makes them more likely to catch diseases and slows development in coordination, mobility and learning, the report says. These problems often continue into adulthood.
The institute's projections are based on computer modeling of production, consumption and demand for 16 food sources, ranging from rice to poultry, over the next two decades.
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International Food Policy Research Institute: www.ifpri.org