40 Million Children at Risk: Gates Foundation Unveils Shattering Report on Malnutrition and Disease

New modeling shows 40 million more children will suffer from hunger's worst effects by 2050 due to climate change, but immediate action could instead boost health, spur economic growthSEATTLE, Sept. 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In its eighth annual Goalkeepers report released today, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation urged world leaders to increase global health spending where it is needed most in order to boost children's health and nutrition, especially in the face of the global climate crisis.

The Goalkeepers report, "A Race to Nourish a Warming World," projects that without immediate global action, climate change will condemn an additional 40 million children to stunting and 28 million more to wasting between 2024 and 2050. Scaling up solutions now can avoid this outcome, while also building resilience to climate change and spurring much-needed economic growth.

In 2023, the World Health Organization estimated that 148 million children experienced stunting, a condition where children don't grow to their full potential mentally or physically, and 45 million children experienced wasting, a condition where children become weak and emaciated, leaving them at much greater risk of developmental delays and death. These are the most severe and irreversible forms of chronic and acute malnutrition.

At the same time, as global challenges intensify, the total share of foreign aid going to Africa has decreased. In 2010, 40% of foreign aid went to African countries. But that number is now down to just 25%—the lowest percentage in 20 years—despite more than half of all child deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. This trend leaves hundreds of millions of children at serious risk of dying or suffering from preventable diseases and threatens the unprecedented progress the world made in global health across Africa between 2000 and 2020.