Nutrition is Foundational to UK Development Aims, and appropriately, the title of our photographic exhibition staged in the heart of Parliament.
Delivered in partnership with Action Against Hunger, One Acre Fund, Concern Worldwide, and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) UK, the exhibits, displayed UK efforts to combat global malnutrition.
Conflict, climate resilience, gender equality, and global health are the UK Government’s international development priorities. The vivid images portrayed how investment in nutrition is critical to save and improve lives in each context.
Launching the exhibition, International Development Minister, Baroness Chapman of Darlington, thanked the partner NGOs for their important work. She urged the Parliamentarians present to tell constituents about the importance of nutrition and how the UK Government is working alongside governments and communities to fight malnutrition.
Steve Race, MP for Exeter and Co-Chair of the APPG on Nutrition for Development, welcomed the gathering. Setting the scene, he remarked that conflict is the leading driver of hunger, affecting 140 million people, exacerbating violence, and propelling migration. Accelerating climate change is threatening global food security, and more than one billion adolescent girls and women suffer from malnutrition, a condition that increases vulnerability to infectious diseases tenfold.
“So, it is important that organisations have come together to tell the visual story of the foundational nature of good nutrition and how it connects to all areas of development,” he said.
Next, Monica Harding MP for Esher and Vice Chair of the APPG observed how the imagery brought home the difference that the UK can make, which she had witnessed on her visits to countries with a high burden of malnutrition, saying, “These powerful photographs tell the story in a way words alone cannot.”
Picking out images, she spoke of the joyful picture of a family in Malawi, able to sleep because of One Acre Fund’s vouchers supplied to pregnant women and new mothers to plant seeds. Of Hawa in Chad with her full catch of fish, caught with a new fishing net provided by Concern Worldwide. Of baby Sohaib suffering from malnutrition and chickenpox, receiving care from MSF, and the arresting images of pregnant Nyibol and her daughter fleeing war-ravaged Sudan and being treated at an Action Against Hunger clinic in South Sudan.
Malnutrition is a preventable and treatable condition that nevertheless causes 45% of deaths of children under five and 20% of maternal deaths. Proven, low-cost, high-impact antenatal multiple micronutrient supplements (MMS) provide an unborn baby with the nutrients it needs to survive and thrive and prevent birth complications. Ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) pulls young children back from the brink of starvation in weeks.
A reception in the Attlee and Reed room in the House of Lords followed the opening ceremony, where Baroness Brown made a powerful and heartfelt speech. The images taken by Arlette Bashizi, a photojournalist from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), had struck a chord, recalling her visit to the country as an election monitor in 2008. “Malnutrition and hunger are more than being without food. For girls, the consequences can be forced marriage and all the dangers that come with it,” Baroness Brown said.
Nandi Bwanali, a programme manager from the One Acre Fund, continued the theme. She explained that inequalities that restrain women’s access to land, finance, education, and decision-making persist. Cultural norms and accelerating climate change sustain these inequalities and limit women’s ability to grow food. The result: women typically eat last and least and are disproportionately affected by malnutrition.
“But by empowering women smallholder farmers and closing the gender gap in agriculture, we can move closer to eradicating hunger and malnutrition—for women, children, and the wider community. Progress is happening and is possible,” she said.
It was an upbeat note on which to end. Jonny Oates, CEO of United Against Malnutrition & Hunger (UAMH), thanked everyone for participating and commented that Nandi’s words were a powerful reminder that food security, nutrition, and gender are linked and require an integrated approach.
We parted, buoyed by Baroness Chapman’s commitment to support and work alongside the sector, sharing knowledge and strengthening systems in countries. The Minister is on record as stating that the principal aim of UK international development is alleviating poverty for good.
Nutrition is foundational to development. We hope the exhibition enhanced the Minister’s understanding that prioritising investment in nutrition is essential to achieving the UK’s International Development aims and its broader purpose.
