A joint report from UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank shows a worrying increase in the number of children suffering from stunting across Africa. The data in the Joint Malnutrition Estimates 2025 Edition which covers the period 2000-2024, showed that Africa is the only region in which child stunting has increased, and in fact the number of stunted children has actually increased from 61.7 million in 2012 growing to 64.8 million in 2024.
Stunting is a chronic undernutrition condition that impedes a child’s physical and brain development and it usually results from poor diet, repeated infectious diseases, and sub-optimal care. Stunting results in children being shorter than they should be for their age. Stunting not only affects children’s body size, it negatively impacts a child’s ability to learn now, how much they will earn later as adults and their overall well being.
Global Malnutrition Snapshot
According to the report, there are 150.2 million stunted children and 42.8 million wasted (12.2 million with severe wasting) children under the age of five worldwide and we have 35.5 million overweight children. There have been improvements in child nutrition over the past few years, yet progress in reducing stunting and wasting has paused while there has been no decline in overweight.
51% of stunted children belong to Asia while 43% of these children belong to Africa where there has been a disturbing increase and a regional nutrition crisis.
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Urgent Action Needed to Meet 2030 Goals
The report states that only 28% of countries are on track to achieve the global goal of halving stunting by 2030. A mere 17% are making progress in achieving a decrease in overweight children and for over one-third of countries, there was not enough data to determine the progress on wasting.
UN officials are calling on governments to enhance their efforts and make stronger investments in collection of credible data at scale for regular monitoring of child malnutrition. If countries do not act urgently and continuously, the future of millions of children in Africa and beyond is at risk.
