40 million children will experience stunted growth in next 26 years: Gates

HQ Team

September 17, 2024: Billionaire Bill Gates, who describes malnutrition as the “world’s worst child health crisis,” said in the next 25 years, about 40 million children will be stunned and 28 million wasted due to climate change.

“These are the most severe and irreversible forms of chronic and acute malnutrition,” one of the world’s biggest philanthropists said in a statement after his foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates, unveiled the ‘Goalkeepers Report.’

During the 20 years of “health boom” — between 2000 and 2020 — child mortality fell by 50%, he wrote in the report. 

In 2000, more than 10 million children died every year, and now that number is down to fewer than five million children. The prevalence of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases fell by half, too Bill Gates said.

Covid-19 impact

By 2020, wealthy countries were spending less than one-quarter of 1% of their budgets on aid. That’s an average of $10.47 on health per person in the poorest countries. But that $10.47 made a remarkable difference. “Then Covid-19 hit, and progress came to a screeching halt.”

The aid got diverted to fighting inflation, debt, and new wars. “Unfortunately, aid isn’t keeping pace with these needs, particularly in the places that need it the most,” Gates said.

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.

The global health agency stated that 45 million children experienced wasting, a condition where children become weak and emaciated, leaving them at much greater risk of developmental delays and death.

Africa’s share of aid falls 

More than half of all child deaths still occur in sub-Saharan Africa, he said. Since 2010, the percentage of the world’s poor living in the region has also increased by more than 20 percentage points.

“Despite this, during the same period, the share of total foreign aid to Africa has dropped from nearly 40% to only 25%—the lowest percentage in 20 years. Fewer resources mean more children will die of preventable causes.”

Between 2024 and 2050, climate change will mean 40 million additional children will be stunted, and 28 million additional children will be wasted, Gates said.

“The world has to recommit to the work that drove the progress in the early 2000s, especially investments in crucial vaccines and medicines. They’re still saving millions of lives each year, and we can’t afford to backslide.”

“I think we can give global health a second act—even in a world where competing challenges require governments to stretch their budgets,” he said.

‘Invest in nutrition’

Gates called for addressing the growing threat of child malnutrition by supporting the the UN’s Child Nutrition Fund, a new platform that coordinates donor financing for nutrition, and governments fully funding the established institutions that have proven effective at protecting millions of lives each year such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

The 68-year-old, who co-founded Microsoft Corporation, ranks seventh in Forbes World’s billionaire list with total assets of $128 billion. 

Gates has donated more than $59 billion to the Gates Foundation, including a $20 billion gift announced in July 2022. Most of his early donations were gifts of Microsoft stock.

“The best way to fight the impacts of climate change is by investing in nutrition…Malnutrition makes every forward step our species wants to take heavier and harder,” Gates said.

“But the inverse is also true. If we solve malnutrition, we make it easier to solve every other problem. We solve extreme poverty. Vaccines are more effective. And deadly diseases like malaria and pneumonia become far less fatal.”