Poorly fed children rob Africa of up to 16 percent of its potential growth, making investment in programs to end malnutrition as critical to the continent's future as building bridges and roads, African leaders and development officials said Monday. Nearly half all child deaths in Africa are caused by inadequate food and it is the underlying cause of many diseases, yet approaches to tackling health and child nutrition are disjointed and uncoordinated, limiting their impact, according to World Bank and U.N. reports. "Every child stunted is GDP (gross domestic product) growth that is left on the table," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said at an event on the sidelines of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington which lasts through Wednesday. Kim called it a "fundamental mistake" to neglect health and welfare in developing a national growth strategy. The lessons learned from Asia and Latin America are that economic growth alone will not resolve poverty and malnutrition, and that human development programs reap significant growth dividends, he and other leaders said. The discussion marked the first time heads of state have sat down with ministers of agriculture, health, finance, and foreign affairs as well business representatives, donors, and development agencies to share ideas on how to make child nutrition a budgetary priority.
