Maternal and child nutrition (III)

摘要

The Lancet Series on maternal and child nutrition highlights ten proven nutrition-specific interventions that, if globally implemented, could eliminate 45% of deaths (3-1 million lives saved) and 20% of stunting among poor children younger than 5 years.1 On June 8, 2013, the Nutrition for Growth Summit held in London, UK, concluded with US$44 billion in pledges for maternal and child nutrition from governments, non-governmental organisations, and the private sector.2 These pledges are welcome and promising. But there is an urgent need to ensure they end up supporting the priority interventions identified in The Lancet Series, and for that, we need to begin tracking and analysing these pledges and link them to systems to monitor programme coverage and outcomes.There is a dearth of literature on the extent to which increasing investments in maternal and child health have corresponded to different research and programme priorities. Only one study3 has quantified the imbalance between funding for research and funding for delivery science and it has shown that this imbalance has hindered reductions in child mortality.