KABUL, 16 October 2008 (IRIN) - New kinds of nutritional food, preferably made from local produce, should be developed to reduce malnutrition among young children, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said in Kabul on World Food Day.

"Foods which have been fortified for maximum nutritional impact can radically change children's lives," Josette Sheeran, WFP's executive director, said in a statement.

WFP has thrown down a challenge to its offices in 80 countries around the world where people are food-insecure, to develop and produce new micronutrient-rich food items to help tackle child malnutrition.

WFP said 923 million people in the world, including millions of vulnerable Afghans, were fighting hunger every day.

The Afghan government has given a commitment to halve its hungry population by 2018, but high food and fuel prices have forced over five million already vulnerable Afghans into extreme hunger and high-risk food-insecurity, with women and children especially exposed to risks of malnutrition, according to aid agencies.

Soya beans

Locally produced soya beans - believed to be a rich source of amino acids and protein essential for the human body - could be used to curb child malnutrition, nutrition experts have suggested.

"If Afghanistan produces 300,000 tonnes of soya beans annually it will be able to meet the protein requirements of 30 million people and will be able to eradicate malnutrition," Steven Kwon, a USA-based nutrition expert, told IRIN on 28 August.

To do so the war-ravaged country would require sufficient investment in soya bean production and processing into milk, biscuits and other products, experts said.

Worst indicators

Afghanistan has the second highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world largely due to malnutrition, food-insecurity and poor health services, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

About 22 million of the country's estimated 26.6 million people are living in poverty and substandard conditions, UNICEF says.

"Among under-five children, 7 percent suffer from acute malnutrition and 54 percent of them are chronically malnourished. The nutrition figures could be higher in the areas affected by conflict and drought, where access is denied and humanitarian services are difficult to deliver," stated UNICEF's Humanitarian Action Report 2008 [http://www.unicef.org/har08/index.html].

The country has an estimated 5,972,000 under-five children 40 percent of whom are underweight and 54 percent are stunted, according to UNICEF.

Fortified biscuits

In an effort to alleviate short-term hunger and encourage school attendance, WFP will provide a daily ration of fortified biscuits to 1.6 million boys and girls in food-insecure districts with especially poor educational indicators, according to WFP's country brief [http://www.wfp.org/country_brief/indexcountry.asp?region=5§ion=9&sub_section=5&country=004].

"It is imperative that children here are encouraged to attend school so that they have the chance to build a better future for themselves and for their country," Rikki Malik-Lali, WFP's officer-in-charge in Kabul, said in a statement.

WFP said it feeds a third of the population through free distribution, food-for-work and other projects.

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