The percentage of children living in severe food poverty in West and Central Africa fell from 42% to 32% over the last decade, it said, noting advances including diversified crops and performance-based incentives for health workers.
In the absence of vital nutrients, children living with “extremely poor” diets are more likely to experience wasting, a life-threatening form of malnutrition, the agency known as UNICEF said.
“When wasting becomes very severe, they are 12 times more likely to die,” Harriet Torlesse, one of the report’s authors, told The Associated Press.