The World Health Organization (WHO), in collaboration with 1,000 Days, developed a series of six policy briefs linked to each of the global nutrition targets. These policy briefs provide essential guidance to policymakers regarding actions needed in order to achieve progress toward improving maternal and child nutrition and achieving the global nutrition targets by 2025.
Childhood stunting is one of the most significant impediments to human development, affecting approximately 159 million children under the age of 5 around the world. Stunting, or being too short for one’s age, is a largely irreversible outcome of inadequate nutrition and repeated bouts of infection during the first 1000 days of a child’s life. It is detrimental to the health and development of both individuals and societies and urgent progress is needed to reach the target to reduce by 40% the number of children affected by stunting.