Nutrition | World Food Programme

In 2023, in response to the global food and malnutrition crisis, and the UN Global Action Plan on Child Wasting, WFP is scaling up prevention and treatment of acute malnutrition. The focus is on children, and pregnant and breastfeeding women, in food-insecure contexts.

This year, WFP aims to reach 22 million children under 5 years, and 10 million pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls, and prevent them from being afflicted by wasting in the 15 worst-affected countries. Working alongside four sister UN agencies and hand in hand with national governments, WFP will ensure acutely malnourished children and mothers can access treatment promptly. At the same time, we will improve access to healthy diets, strengthen social protection systems and build more resilient food systems to prevent malnutrition, focusing on those in food-insecure contexts and often left behind.

To get to zero hunger, food is not enough. The right nutrition at the right time can save and change lives, and build resilient and prosperous communities and nations.

This is why, as the leading organization providing food assistance to the world’s most vulnerable people, the World Food Programme (WFP) prioritizes nutrition as a core element of its work.

Despite significant progress over recent decades, poor nutrition remains a colossal and universal problem, with one in three people on the planet affected by some form of malnutrition. Undernutrition – inadequate energy or nutrients – continues to affect more than 150 million children worldwide, while rates of overweight and obesity are also rising in all countries. Conflict and natural disasters are exacerbating the problem.

Malnutrition at its extremes can be a matter of life and death, and in the long term can hold back people and countries, undermining economies and development.

Our approach

Where malnutrition threatens the world’s most vulnerable people, WFP is at the forefront to prevent it, and treat it when it does occur.

WFP’s work encompasses all forms of malnutrition, including vitamin and mineral deficiencies – known as ‘hidden hunger’ – and overweight and obesity, alongside undernutrition. Important to our approach is Addressing root causes of malnutrition is fundamental to our approach, including poverty, inequality and poor diets.

Our approach is integrated, with programmes designed to treat and prevent the direct causes of malnutrition, like inadequate diets, complementing programmes that address the underlying factors, such as poor knowledge of feeding practices or lack of clean water. We concentrate our efforts on the most vulnerable, targeting young children, pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and people living with HIV.

Learn more about how you can support our work to ensure young children survive and thrive.

Areas of work

Acute malnutrition: WFP brings its nutrition expertise to support the most vulnerable before, during and after humanitarian crises. We prioritize prevention of malnutrition as it reduces the human suffering and is the most effective path to long-lasting results. When children and women do suffer from acute malnutrition—inadequate nutrition leading to rapid weight loss, or ‘wasting’, —we provide treatment and link it to long-term care to prevent them from becoming malnourished again.
Chronic malnutrition: The first 1,000 days from conception to two years of age are pivotal in determining a child’s destiny. In this short timeframe, the damage done by poor nutrition can cause stunting – impaired development as a result of chronic malnutrition with irreversible damage to children’s bodies and brains. WFP therefore concentrates its efforts where they will have the most impact, targeting young children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers to prevent chronic malnutrition. The right nutrition in this window of opportunity will increase children’s chances of survival, build their immune systems and unlock their potential.
Vitamin and mineral deficiencies: Two billion people today are affected by deficiencies of essential vitamins and minerals (micronutrients), which can leave them susceptible to infectious diseases, impaired physical and mental development, reduced labour productivity and increased risk of premature death. WFP tackles micronutrient deficiencies with strategies like micronutrient powders (or ‘sprinkles’ of vitamins or minerals) which can be added to home-cooked meals, fortification of staple foods with nutrients, and education to promote diet diversity.
Overweight, obesity and the double burden of malnutrition: While seemingly unrelated problems, undernutrition and obesity and overweight (with their links to non-communicable diseases such as diabetes) stem from the same causes. More and more, they are being found side by side, affecting people in the same countries, communities and families. This double burden of malnutrition is providing unprecedented challenges to the governments we support. WFP is integrating these considerations into its work, such as promoting healthy eating and ensuring that programmes provide appropriate foods in the context of rising obesity rates.