Christina Lionnet

Every year, on 16 October, World Food Day provides an occasion to remind us that undernutrition kills over 3 million children a year. In addition to the health tragedy, it is important to stress that this scourge hinders economic development in countries: it costs between 2% and 11% of GDP. For a long time, it was thought that the increase in agricultural production provided an effective and adequate response to combat this scourge. Yet there are a whole host of causes: food insecurity, but also the lack of access to healthcare, water-hygiene-sanitation, education, the impacts of climate change, as well as gender inequalities. Consequently, in order to be able to combat this health tragedy effectively, all actors in the development community must take action.