High-Level Parliamentary Roundtable on tackling the rise of childhood stunting in Africa

On 3 July 2019, LIDC and the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group for Africa jointly held a high-level parliamentary roundtable on tackling the rise of child stunting in Africa. This brought together parliamentarians, leading researchers and policymakers working on child undernutrition to examine solutions to childhood stunting and introduced our Action Against Stunting Hub.

The Hub’s Principal Investigator and LIDC Director, Professor Claire Heffernan, outlined the project and the state of stunting in children globally. She stressed that the international community is not on track to meet Sustainable Development Goal 2.2, which aims to reduce stunting by 40% by 2025. She then explained the whole-child approach the Hub is using to tackle stunting.

Next Professor Paul Haggarty, from Hub co-investigator the University of Aberdeen, explained the Hub’s aim to create a typology to classify different types of stunting. And Rose Ndulu Ndolo from World Vision UK stressed the need for a multi-stakeholder approach to deal with the issue. She called on attendees to raise awareness with different groups in Africa and engage with the UN.

Finally Science Made Simple spoke about the Hub’s public engagement work – its aim to break down barriers with the public and to secure the full support of local communities for the research project.