scholarly journals The malnutrition bazaar: the case of RUTF

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-118
Author(s):  
Radha Holla
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
World Health ◽  
World Food ◽  
Standing Committee ◽  
World Food Programme ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
United Nations System ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Nations System

Severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in children is life-threatening. Its causes range from lack of access to balanced food, to incorrect feeding practices, lack of access to an efficient health system, to clean potable water and sanitation. However, the present approach to managing SAM is fortified packaged food – a paste made with peanuts or other protein rich food such as chickpeas, milk and sugar, to which micronutrients are added. Currently, a version of the paste with less energy levels is also being recommended for treating even moderate forms of malnutrition, as well as for prevention of malnutrition (World Health Organization (WHO), 2012; WHO/UNICEF/WFP, 2014; WFP/UNICEF/USAID, undated). The large number of malnourished children around the globe furnish the food and pharmaceutical industries with an immense potential market for these fortified food packages.  That the market for ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTFs) is rapidly expanding is primarily due to its endorsement by the World Health Organisation (WHO, the World Food Programme, the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition[1] (UNSCN) and UNICEF for treating SAM (World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition and the United Nations Children’s Fund. (2007).). Non state actors like Action Against Hunger (Action Contre La Faim) and Médecins Sans Frontières   have also been working to introduce RUTF treatment in countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, Libya, Chad, Central African Republic, Malawi, Yemen, India and Pakistan. In addition, several of the new manufacturers use unethical marketing practices to increase their share of sales. The long-term sustainable solution to reducing undernutrition has to be based on policies that manage conflict, inequity, gender imbalance, food sovereignty and security, infant and young child feeding, basic health services and provision of safe drinking water and sanitation. [1] In 2020, the UN Network for SUN (UNN) merged with the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN) to form a new entity, called UN Nutrition. As of 1 January 2021, the UN Nutrition Secretariat, hosted by FAO headquarters, became operational.

The United Nations system under stress: financial pressures and their consequences

1991 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 365-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Health ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
United Nations System ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Nations System ◽  
Financial Pressures

This essay is about the response by the United Nations system to financial pressures in the 1980s and early 1990s. These pressures resulted from two developments: the decision of the main contributing states to adopt a policy of zero growth in real terms in the budgets of the organizations; and the additional withholdings by the United States which resulted from the Kassebaum Amendment to the Senate Foreign Relations Act of August 1985. This required a 20 per cent underpayment by the United States of its assessed financial contributions until a range of reforms in budgetary procedures, judged acceptable by the US Administration, had been introduced. The impact of the resulting financial squeeze is considered with particular reference to three Specialized Agencies: the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

scholarly journals Franco’s Spain and the Politics of International Health

2019 ◽  
pp. 57-87
Author(s):  
David Brydan
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Rockefeller Foundation ◽  
International Health ◽  
World Health ◽  
Franco Regime ◽  
International Health Organizations ◽  
Post War ◽  
United Nations System ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Nations System

Liberal international health organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the World Health Organization (WHO) played an important role in Spain’s post-war search for legitimacy, and social experts served as a vanguard for Spain’s integration into the United Nations system. The idea of international health as a technical, apolitical field was particularly important in enabling the Franco regime to overcome its outsider status. At the height of Spain’s diplomatic isolation after 1945, a fierce battle raged at the WHO over the question of Spanish membership, which saw it excluded from the new organization. But the WHO was one of the first international bodies Spain was admitted to in the 1950s, paving the way to full United Nations membership. Spain’s rapid integration into the WHO reflected the success of the Franco regime in exploiting the ‘technical’ and ‘apolitical’ language of international health to overcome international political opposition.

The Reaction to the Ebola Epidemic within the United Nations Framework: What Next for the World Health Organization?

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 405-424
Author(s):  
Pia Acconci
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
World Health Organization ◽  
Security Council ◽  
International Health ◽  
World Health ◽  
Director General ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Health Organization

The World Health Organization (who) was established in 1946 as a specialized agency of the United Nations (un). Since its establishment, the who has managed outbreaks of infectious diseases from a regulatory, as well as an operational perspective. The adoption of the International Health Regulations (ihrs) has been an important achievement from the former perspective. When the Ebola epidemic intensified in 2014, the who Director General issued temporary recommendations under the ihrs in order to reduce the spread of the disease and minimize cross-border barriers to international trade. The un Secretary General and then the Security Council and the General Assembly have also taken action against the Ebola epidemic. In particular, the Security Council adopted a resolution under Chapter vii of the un Charter, and thus connected the maintenance of the international peace and security to the health and social emergency. After dealing with the role of the who as a guide and coordinator of the reaction to epidemics, this article shows how the action by the Security Council against the Ebola epidemic impacts on the who ‘authority’ for the protection of health.

The Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS) of UNEP

1982 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Gwynne
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Monitoring System ◽  
Monitoring Network ◽  
Pollution Monitoring ◽  
Air Pollution Monitoring ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
United Nations System ◽  
Activity Centre ◽  
Nations System

The Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS) is a collective effort of the world community to acquire, through monitoring, the data needed for rational management of the environment, and arose from recommendations of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment which was held in Stockholm in 1972. The GEMS Programme Activity Centre (PAC) at UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, coordinates all that it can of the various environmental monitoring activities which are carried on throughout the world—particularly those within the United Nations System.Great care is taken to ensure that data gathered by GEMS are of the highest attainable quality, and that data collected from different parts of a particular monitoring network are both comparable and compatible. The GEMS Programme Activity Centre (PAC), in the manner of UNEP itself, is not operational but works mainly through the intermediary of the Specialized Agencies of the United Nations System—most notably FAO, ILO, UNESCO, WHO, and WMO—together with appropriate intergovernmental organizations such as IUCN.The GEMS monitoring system consists of five closelyinterrelated programmes which have built-in provision for training and for rendering technical assistance to ensure the participation of countries that are inadequately provided with personnel and equipment. The five are:1. Climate-related monitoring;2. Monitoring of long-range transport of pollutants;3. Health-related monitoring (concerned with pollutional effects);4. Ocean monitoring; and5. Terrestrial renewable-resource monitoring.Each of these broad areas contains at least five distinct world-wide monitoring networks. Examples of these latter are the World Glacier Inventory, Background Air Pollution Monitoring Network, Urban Air Pollution Monitoring Network, Global Water Quality Monitoring Network, Tropical Forest Monitoring Network, Species Conservation Monitoring Network, etc.Monitored data are gathered at suitable coordinating centres for each network at which appropriate data-bases have been, or are being, established. Data are analyzed to produce periodic regional and global assessments which are reported at intervals that are appropriate to the variable which is being considered.

scholarly journals Contradicción y paradoja en el reporte de felicidad mundial, una mirada objetiva

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raúl Carpio
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
World Health Organization ◽  
Linear Model ◽  
Suicide Rate ◽  
World Health ◽  
Simple Correlation ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Modelo Lineal

El presente trabajo, presenta un análisis que propone un modelo lineal inverso, mediante correlación simple. Se utilizan las variables, nivel de felicidad de un país, emitido en el Reporte de Felicidad Mundial, de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas, y la tasa de suicidios del país emitida por la Organización Mundial de la Salud. Este estudio, es un intento de probar la utilidad del mencionado ranking de felicidad y si se lo puede usar como un referente de la situación emocional de las naciones.AbstractThis work shows an analysis who proposes an inverse linear model by simple correlation. It uses the variables: country ranking of happiness; publish in the World Happiness Report of the United Nations, and the country suicide rate, published by the World Health Organization. This study tries to probe the usefulness of the happiness ranking, and if it´s a good reference about the emotional situation of the nations.

The Needs of Children

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 1063-1063
Author(s):  
MYRON E. WEGMAN
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
World Health Organization ◽  
Nutrition Education ◽  
World Health ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Voluntary Contributions ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Health Organization

This book is a compilation of certain fundamental reports and documents of interest to anyone looking at the needs of children internationally. It is published for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), a fund of the United Nations responsible to the General Assembly and depending for its income on voluntary contributions of governments and individuals. Although the technical responsibility for the programs in areas such as health, nutrition, education, and welfarelies with the respective specialized agencies of the United Nations, such as the World Health Organization and the Food and Africulture Organization, UNICEF has a fundamental role in centralizing and focalizing work for children.

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