World Leaders signed Agreement to tackle Malnutrition

World leaders on 8 June 2013 signed a global agreement to fight malnutrition in children and made commitments of up to 4.15 billion dollars to tackle under nutrition up to 2020. The agreement, called Global Nutrition for Growth was signed during the central London summit. The summit was participated by two Presidents and four Prime Ministers from Africa, philanthropist Bill Gates, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Unilever chief executive Paul Polman.

The agreement also aims to improve saving the lives of at least 1.7 million children by increasing breastfeeding and better treatment of severe and acute malnutrition. The UK committed an additional 375 million pounds of funding from 2013 to 2020.

Countries which have previously increased nutrition funding, like the US and Canada, committed themselves to continuing those high levels of funding while others, like the European Union, the World Bank and Ireland, increased their support substantially.
Stunting affects around 165 million children across the globe and almost 50 per cent of children in India. The World Health Assembly agreed a new global target of a 40 per cent reduction in the number of stunted children by 2025.