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STORY: UN / VENEZUELA CHILDREN
TRT: 00:53
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 26 JANUARY 2018, NEW YORK CITY
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, UNHQ exterior
26 JANUARY 2018, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press room
3. Med shot, journalists
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Our colleagues at UNICEF warn today that a growing number of children in Venezuela are suffering from malnutrition because of the protracted economic crisis affecting the country. While precise figures are unavailable because of very limited official health or nutrition data, there are clear signs that the crisis is limiting children’s access to quality health services, medicines and food. UNICEF says that the Government has implemented measures to mitigate the impact of the crisis on children’s nutrition, but that more needs to be done to reverse the worrisome decline in children’s nutritional wellbeing. It reiterates its readiness to strengthen support for Government and civil society.”
5. Wide shot, press room
According to a UN spokesperson, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned today (26 Jan) that a “growing number of children in Venezuela are suffering from malnutrition because of the protracted economic crisis affecting the country.”
Speaking to reporters in New York, UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said while precise figures are unavailable because of very limited official health or nutrition data, “there are clear signs that the crisis is limiting children’s access to quality health services, medicines and food.”
The most recent official figures released by the National Institute of Nutrition in 2009 showed that the prevalence of wasting, low weight to height ratio, in children under five was at the time 3.2 percent. UNICEF said more recent nonofficial studies have shown significantly higher rates of wasting among children. The 2016 Global Nutrition Report estimated a wasting prevalence of 4.1 per cent, while The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017 suggested that undernourishment -a measure of hunger indicating the proportion of population with inadequate energy consumption - in Venezuela has increased from 10.5 percent to 13 percent between 2004-06 and 2014-2016.
UNICEF said the Venezuelan Government has implemented measures to mitigate the impact of the crisis on children’s nutrition, including the provision of monthly packages of food at affordable prices to the most vulnerable families, cash transfers, and strengthening of nutritional assessment and recuperation services. However, the Fund warned that more needs to be done to reverse the worrisome decline in children’s nutritional wellbeing.
UNICEF expressed its readiness to strengthen its support for Government and civil society partners to mitigate the impact of the crisis on the most vulnerable children.
