The Committee was alerted to the emergence of malnourishment of children in the Gaza Strip which was said never to have occurred before.

As a result of prenatal complications such as malnourishment, insufficient medical facilities, pregnant wife beating and drug addiction, children are increasingly being born with physical and mental defects.

While bilateral emergency assistance had been provided by some countries, the international community had failed to mobilize its efforts to tackle malnourishment in the Niger and many other African countries.

Food supply has not collapsed (1.5 billion hectares of arable land are being used, but another 2.7 billion hectares are in reserve). Malnourishment has dropped by more than half, from 35 of the world s population to under 16 .

Women's poverty is reflected in undernourishment and malnourishment, resulting, inter alia, from inadequate income, lack of education and gender inequality within households.10 Women in rural areas have high fertility rates and limited access to information and services on reproductive health.

Los Labios, an Argentine project directed by Santiago Loza and Ivan Fund, simply follows three government funded nurses who go to a rural area to serve the needs of the impoverished local population. It humbly tracks their accounting of cases of malnourishment, alcoholism, diseases of poverty, and the ravages of unemployment and inadequate medical care.